What Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms Do You Experience?

Below you will find a comprehensive list of social anxiety disorder symptoms.

I suffered from quite a bit of them. How about you?

Or are you maybe reading this because you suspect someone close to you suffers from a social anxiety disorder (social phobia)?

In any case, in this article I’ll give you a quick summary of what social anxiety disorder is, and after that I’ll provide a full review of all the possible social anxiety symptoms.

At the end of the article you can follow the link that goes to the page with the official social anxiety test.
Before you read on, I like to tell you that this article is not meant to motivate you. There are other articles which will do so on this site. But here I will go into detail about how negative and limiting a social phobia is to your overall happiness and satisfaction in life.

But there are solutions to the disorder, which you will find if you look around on social-anxiety-solutions.com.

A Social Anxiety Disorder?

If you have a social anxiety disorder (social phobia), you have a constant and persistent fear of negative judgment.

Your biggest worry is becoming embarrassment and/or humiliated in a social situation. And even though you logically know that the anxiety is irrational, you are still overwhelmed by your emotions.

Because of this constant fear and worry, most decisions you make are being made out of fear and avoidance. You don’t want to go to that party because that will make your anxiety alarm go off like crazy! And you will have an awful time being there anyway, so why would you torture yourself?

You also think that you have little or poor social skills and that other people are master conversationalist. And this not always true, it’s just that your negative thinking makes you believe this is the case.

When you are free of the social phobia…

-which is absolutely achievable-

…you possibly find out that due to your lack of anxiety you have better social skills that you thought you had…

And even if they are really poor, when you have little anxiety these are quickly acquired!

Psychological Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms:

For myself I’ve struggled with almost all of the psychological symptoms. Though I did push myself to go to the social situations that I felt I couldn’t escape from.

I reasoned that if I would not go to those, I would end up with even more socially anxious situations. I thought people would then for sure question me and put me on the spot as to where I was and how much of a weirdo and loner I was and what not…

So in some of those situations, where I couldn’t come up with yet another excuse, I would force myself to go. I would get drunk as soon as possible to make it more bearable and then sing it out.

Not much fun…

The list of the psychological social anxiety disorder symptoms:

    • You have an extreme fear of being watched or judged by others, especially by strangers : You for example dread waiting in the line at the super market or experience high levels of anxiety when you are walking in a crowded street. You think everyone is watching you, observing you, judging your every move.If you hear people laugh you’re sure they’re laughing at you. You are so concerned about what other people think of you that you are constantly extremely self-conscious. And being the center of attention is the worst scenario possible…
    • You fear social or performance situations where you might be judged or scrutinized : Think about making and answering a phone call, eating in public, making use of a public bathroom, giving a speech, answering a question in a meeting/at school etc.
    • You have a very intense fear of being in situations where you don’t know people : Going to a bar or a concert provokes high anxiety. Also introducing yourself to a new people causes extreme anxiety for most social phobia sufferers.
    • You experience an intense worry about future social situations that are “impossible” to avoid : When I would have to go to a good friend’s birthday party for example, I would dread it weeks in advance. I would have to walk in the room, all eyes would be focused on me, they would ask me questions, there would be jokes etc.
      This is called anticipatory anxiety and actually makes things worse for the social phobia sufferer.
    • You’re afraid of making mistakes and embarrassing or humiliating yourself
      : So when I would be on one of those birthday parties, I would fear saying or doing something stupid. Or being the center of attention.
      What if I would embarrass myself? And then the slightest thing would cause me to think I did something embarrassing which would set of my blushing trigger…
    • You worry about other people noticing your nervousness and physical social anxiety disorder symptoms :

Which causes you to constantly walk on eggshells and makes you very attune to any possible nervousness which people might notice. Then once you notice a little, you’re convinced everyone can see it which makes you even more anxious and uncomfortable.

  • You avoid as much social situation as possible, especially ones where you might be the center of attention :

 

Due to this behavior you might not have that much friends, if any. You might skip classes, job interviews, meetings, social invitations etc. Your social life is close to non-existent. And so is a healthy and satisfying dating and sex life for most social phobia sufferers.

Physical Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms:

The physical social anxiety disorder symptoms are even more frustrating because they make it obvious to other people that you are uncomfortable.

Which results in you becoming even more embarrassment if they notice! And it also makes you constantly worry and anxious about becoming uncomfortable!

I also had quite a lot of these, with facial blushing being my biggest problem. That one took me the most time to overcome.

The possible physical social anxiety disorder symptoms are:

  • A pounding heart or a tight chest
  • Palpitations (an abnormal awareness of the beating of the heart, whether it is too slow, too fast, irregular, or at its normal frequency)
  • Breathing difficulties
  • Swallowing problems
  • Difficulty with talking
  • A shaky voice
  • Excessive sweating or hot flashes
  • An upset stomach and/or nausea
  • A dry mouth
  • Confusion
  • Trembling or shaking
  • Muscle tension, especially above the neck and face
  • Blushing
  • Dizziness, feeling faint
  • Cold, Clammy hands
  • Twitching
  • Difficulty making eye contact
  • Diarrhea
  • Facial freezing
  • Zoning out, numbing out when the anxiety becomes too intense

Aside from all these social anxiety disorder symptoms there are several character traits associated to having s social phobia.

For example having trouble with being assertive and being hypersensitive to criticism. Having a lack of social skills, having a lot of negative self talk and overall low self esteem are associated traits as well…

As said earlier, this article on social anxiety disorder symptoms is not a motivational article. In fact, it’s pretty depressing. But it is still good to know that these are the facts.

But it is my intention to provide solutions to social anxiety disorder so I like to end this article by telling you that there are real solutions to overcome a social phobia.

You can find them in the articles on this site.

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