Overcoming Awkward

The truth is, I like to think I like who I am. And yet, when I enter a new situation, I hide her. I need to test the waters first. Which version of me will be accepted here? Is it safe to express myself authentically? Despite reality, my answer to the latter question is often no. I fear judgment. I mean, no one likes feeling judged. But not everyone lets that dictate who they are in a crowd.

I've experimented with being social. I like to think I've gotten pretty good at it at this point. I thought if I could learn how to be less awkward, hold a proper conversation, maybe I wouldn't judge myself so harshly at the end of every day. Just stop being awkward! Simple enough, right? Don't follow that advice, by the way, it's a horrible idea. Ask me how I know.

I continued my quest for social confidence with bad advice until, at my freshman orientation, I encountered a speaker who changed the trajectory of my self-esteem. She wasn't trying to hide her awkward. As a matter of fact, her speech was about the importance of embracing the awkward. It was a perspective that had never been presented to me before, and an option I hadn't known existed. But - I hadn't known how much I needed it.

My teenage self lived in her head. She didn't know that other people could be awkward, too. She was so fixated on her own social mistakes that she never paid enough attention to realize that other people made the same ones. But this was college; she didn't have to be that same girl. She was ready to shed the need to live up to the image that others had of her and overcome her not-yet-diagnosed social anxiety disorder.

I became more observant after witnessing that speech. I noticed students at the cafe spilling food on their shirts, their cheeks flushing as they looked around to see if anyone saw. I noticed people's clumsiness; students dropping their books on the way to class, scrambling to pick them back up again as quickly as possible. I noticed others' poor word choices in conversations that were certainly forgivable. And - I didn't judge them. As a matter of fact, I felt relieved. I had seen myself as this socially inept alien figure. I was certain that people outside of my inner circle saw me the same way, and therefore, leaving the house meant exposing myself to this perpetual, uninvited, noxious, silent ridicule. It meant punishment for simply existing. But the truth is, these people couldn't care less about that weird thing I said at 10:37 sharp; more than likely, they don't even remember. That realization was freedom. It meant I was allowed to make mistakes. It meant I was allowed to be human.

Being human felt good, but it was only a start. I still struggled to make new friends and relax at parties. I still had panic attacks leading up to every class presentation. I still couldn't make a phone call without writing out a script and fighting off tears, or text someone new without spending hours agonizing over how I'd screw up my wording and make them hate me. But I had identified the parts of myself that I hated, and for the first time, I had hope that I could change them. I later learned that every part of myself that I hated was, indeed, a symptom. Everyone else just magically knows how to be normal, and I do not. I used to think that every day.

However, I am proud to say that in my first year of college, I left behind my inability to speak with anyone male. I made progress rewiring my brain by reminding myself what I would think of an awkward moment if it happened to someone other than me, because I'm much kinder to others than I am to myself. I eventually made it to therapy and received an official diagnosis. But most importantly, for the first time in my life, I could feel oxygen in my lungs when I breathed.