When I express to people that I have social anxiety and depression the response I usually get is, "You can't have those, you're so good with people." "You work as a waitress." or "But you're so friendly." Let me tell you, social anxiety doesn't express itself in those ways for me. I'm really good with people because I treat most of my encounters with people as I would a theatre performance. I can go through scripted conversations, at least on my side, really well. The second that I veer from that script of socially acceptable ways to talk is when I start to feel the normally low levels of anxiety triple. I almost feel as though I don't know how to interact with people in a genuine way. When I try I get into altercations with people. Take tonight, I was having a conversation with our head chef who had come in for drinks after work and he kept talking over me to make his point. I finally had had enough and I blew up at him. Now I'm laying here at almost one in the morning going over and over it in my head. I feel like I should apologize, but I also feel like that's how I needed to express myself since he was refusing to let me get my side out. I feel like, by apologizing, I'm giving in to his overbearing personality and allowing him to think that he was right to talk to me that way. I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm sure I'll be up most of the night trying to figure it out...
