Heightened Awareness

When we, and I mean people in general, go out into the world and deal with others - we put on acts. We've taken Shakespeare's line "all the world's a stage and we are merely players" to the next level. A more accurate statement for our time would be "all the world's a stage and I'm the lead role." In other words, all eyes are on me. If I believe this, then I'm going to act accordingly. If I have delusions of grandeur and believe that I'm the center of attention this may cause me to develop anxiety, especially if I'm worried about every mistake I make.

A lot of people that suffer from social anxiety are very bright people that can sense other's emotional states that are in their vicinity in a much more heightened sense than a lot of the general public. A word or phrase, a look or mannerism that most people don't even notice is picked up by the more sensitive. This can be a very good trait if you're a Pastor or Doctor with good bedside manner etc. but when you are making a speech in class it can be overwhelming. There is both an empathy for those that are sad and in need as well as a fear of those that might say or do something that can be harmful that is felt on a much more basic and harsher level. The trick might be getting rid of the latter effects but somehow keeping the former which makes us uniquely good people. After all, the Bible mentions these soft-hearted, more humble people as those that will inherit the earth. On the other hand, the original sin is pride so we are stuck between the two somehow.

The heightened awareness of the negativity that some give off towards us can cause us to be very unlike ourselves, even angry. I'm probably not alone when I say that this heightened awareness is somewhat supernatural in its own way. For example, when I was in my teenage years I went through a period where my acne got pretty bad due to a reaction from taking Accutane. I went to the mall by myself a shirt and on this day I was feeling pretty vulnerable and down about myself. I had, up until this point, (by God's grace) almost model like looks which seem to be taken away from me in the course of a few weeks. It was one of the few things that I had going for me and now it was gone. Always had the attention of girls, regularly had the leadership role among other guy friends (even though I didn't want it) just because of looks and now even that was gone.

Anyway, I'm walking through the mall, trying to quickly get in and out and back to my room at home so I can hibernate and read when for some reason I was aware of two guys about my age walking about twenty feet behind me. At the time, which may be anxiety related, I also had superb hearing and eyesight. The eyesight was nice but the hearing can be a curse. These senses were probably heightened due to my constant state of flight or fight. One of the guys said something about my acne in a disgusted way. It was pretty strange, like something was triggered just by my awareness of them even though I never turned around. The way he said it was almost as if I shouldn't even be in public while the other guy asked something like "what are you talking about?" His buddy seemed to be surprised by his anger also.

The thing is, I thought he was going to say this just the way he said before he even said it. What the hell? Did I cause this to happen or can I tell the future? Are people truly connected in ways we cannot yet understand or is it merely bad luck? There are other circumstances that I can relate where I could see something bad coming before it happened and this caused me to be even more reclusive. If there aren't people around then I cannot predict and make these things happen or somehow I can avoid pain that is associated with being around other people. Sometimes I think that being an only child did not help the situation. Maybe I would have been a little tougher if I had an older brother or sister at home telling me to get over myself.

Situations like these made me feel like I was the center of the universe. Like I was one of the leading roles of the planet that others just had to pay attention to even though I didn't want their attention at all because most of the time it was negative for some reason (or maybe that's just the cases that stick in my mind while I forget about all of the good interactions).

Don't get the wrong idea, before and after this period (even though I was socially anxious at school and work) I did go to the mall with friends and to many social venues without occurrence. I had a friend at the time that also suffered from some of the same social anxiety issues but not as bad as me and that seemed to help. I guess we both thought we were the center of everyone else's attention. It's almost like this heightened anxiety gives us a form of PTSD. The mind doesn't know whether it's in flight or fight because we are being shot at or being ridiculed. All that it knows is that we are in some kind of danger. So, like a soldier who can remember details of a fire fight that cost the life of fellow soldiers with more detail because of the sharpness of his mind at the time, we too can remember the details of such petty things as these simply because our minds were in the same state. I have almost a photographic memory of awkward and embarrassing social situations that happened 20 years ago like it was yesterday. This is yet, another downfall of social anxiety. We must somehow get the right perspective back and realize we aren't the center of attention and on the rare occasions that we are - become better at dealing with it and stop worrying about looking foolish in front of others.

For more understanding on social anxiety here is a great article on Social Anxiety from Jules Evans...