Paralysed like a rabbit

One day far away, a famous journalist told me that he would gladly talk to me and would come to visit me in my city to organize something literary together.

A Muggle (remember that by Muggle I mean “person not affected by social anxiety”) would have blown up like a balloon at the idea, would have poofed up like a peakock, would have thought about where and how to welcome the guest and make the most of the potential friendship.

I felt paralyzed like a rabbit in front of the headlights of a car that was about to hit him. I have not said anything more, I have not replied to the messages, in case he insisted. Needless to say, nothing was done, he came to my city without us meeting and our friendship never took off.

This is an example of how a social phobic writer cannot implement those common self-promotion strategies that involve interaction and relationship. Obviously, together with the fear of panic and the desire to escape from a social situation that terrifies, in addition to the frustration of yet another untapped opportunity, there is always a sense of guilt for one’s own inadequacy, for the lack of courage and strength , due to the inability to do what for others would be simple. (And this, of course, in the life of a social phobic has even more dire consequences than the non-publication of his books, see the impossibility of driving a car, or, as in my case, of supporting myself).

Here is what a friend writes to me. I think I could not have found better words to describe what it feels like and the difficulties of our daily life.

“Patrizia, everyone will tell you that you have to go and you have to call, so I won’t do it … neither would I go! I would be happy for you, I wish you could have the satisfaction you deserve; but if it must only be anxiety and discomfort, why undergo this stress? Your attitude will be incomprehensible to many (like mine) but not to me. I know how you feel: anxiety, which subsides only when you decide to say no. And, immediately after, a sense of guilt for having given up on this too. As I have already told you, let us absolve ourselves; we accept not always being able to make the right choice; we cannot go crazy with anxiety. If everything is easy for others, it is not for us and it is not in our power to change our attitude, no matter what others say (“Why don’t you go? !“).

We don’t put anything into our head, it’s our head that chemically works like this; and even if we are here to analyze ourselves psychologically, finding a thousand causes of our discomfort, the fact is that it is there and we have to live with it.”

Coexist is the magic word. Living with social anxiety as you do with high blood pressure, with migraines, with arthritis. Living with a chronic disease ready to flare up when you least expect it and, above all, when you expect it! (See anticipatory anxiety crisis).