02/12/2025
Imagine spending your whole night out with friends, focusing on what everyone is thinking about you, and how they’re judging every word that comes out of your mouth.
Then, when you go home, you spend the next few hours replaying everything you said, wondering whether or not everyone else there thought it was cool, smart, or witty, or if you just sounded stupid and ruined everyone’s time.
This is the life of someone with social anxiety. Social anxiety, or social phobia, affects about 15 million adults. Even though it’s extremely common, it can be tough for people who’ve never experienced this fear of human interaction to understand it.
Even when social anxiety is hidden by a calm exterior, it still shows up in subtle behaviors.