Help/Support ► Being shy sucks...

[Mason Stark]

This is a sort of thing that bugs me on and off, but this time, it's gotten horrible. ;___; Like I've gotten depressed for the past few nights because of this. I have barely any friends (the ONLY bad thing about homeschooling; trust me My friends in public school were horrible.) and my two bestest friends, and only real friends, are barely online. So, last few nights when I think they're going to get on, I get depressed. I'm trying to talk to other people, but I'm horrified of doing that.

I'm going to see a therapist sort of doctor person for anxiety problems/panic attacks. She gave me a book about dealing with anxiety and I've figured out that I've got a social phobia. I believe that everybody thinks I'm weird and, the biggest hurtle, that I'm annoying.

I have to make friends online for now, but I'm terrified about talking to people, especially when I believe I'm an annoying, obnoxious person. However, when I do talk to people, I barely talk. I'm also good at intelligent conversation, so calling myself annoying sorta-kinda doesn't make any sense, since I'm not specifically annoying when I'm talking in a conversation.

So, my question is this: how do I get myself to believe that I'm not as annoying (and, possibly, weird) as I think am? If that hurtle is out of the way, then it may be easier to talk to people. Also, does anyone know how I could talk to people (specifically online) without getting so anxious and panicky?

Oh, and I bet I'm going to get "Why don't you go outside and make some real friends? " which is VERY hard to do right now, so friends online'll have to work for now. I'm going to college soon and I'm trying to get a job, so please don't say anything about trying to make 'real' friends. I'll have to work on that in a bit, but this'll have to do for now 8D;

Thank you, thank you if you comment! I greatly appreciate it! :]

 

[Dentim]

Huh. Are you a mindreader or something? That's exactly what I've been going trough. But for a pretty long time, not just a couple of days. Depressing as hell, amirite?

I'll be your friend

 

[tangerine]

I'll be your friend. That wasn't so hard, was it? :} You shouldn't think of yourself as annoying. Different people have different tastes. You just need people who have similar tastes to yours.

 

[king_mickey rule]

I'll be your friend too ;d

Altough I won't be that much online (except the last couple of days xP), you can always talk to me ;d.
To answer your questions:

How to believe you are not that weird etc. as some people think you are ~~ Well, this is kinda hard but you'll have to believe in yourself and also accept that not everyone will like you (been through the same thing and got out of it, I believed in myself et voila ;d).

How to not be anxious and panicky ~~ Also something hard to do but just don't be scared of saying something wrong (this fear is I think the biggest cause of your shyness). Don't be afraid of making mistakes, mistakes are made to learn from them not to be scared and depressed by.

Once you accept this it will get easier to talk to other persons and this will give you a confidence boost => you'll talk to more people => 2nd confidence boost and so on, you get the point ;d

The key is to be more confident and take the step (and don't be afraid if you mess up, you can learn from this). And if someone doesn't act friendly towards you and you know you didn't do anything wrong, you just move on.
Not everyone can like you, that's perfectly normal.

Hope I helped

 

[Sacred X]

I'll be your friend too ;d

I'll be your friend.

I'll be your friend

Real friendships don't work like that.

First, I must advise you that online friendships are not the best of friendships. They're nice to have on the side for when you're online, or if you know the person but cannot have IRL contact. However preferring online friends over real friends will do very little for you, as you'll be too used to the online world opposed to the real world, and eventually you'll only "feel like yourself" when you're behind a screen, rendering you pretty "weird" to real world people. Hopefully you'll be ready to make real friends once whatever is happening with you settles down soon.

As for making online friends, I don't see why you'd get nervous at all. Just keep in mind that you're only talking to someone online; a person you'll never meet. If something goes wrong, it's not that bad; you can easily block them out of your life forever. If you're just nervous because you're unsure whether the person will like you or not, then you're probably focusing on a single person too much. Don't expect so much so soon. If you have trouble and feel you're giving someone too much attention (which might lead you to believe you're annoying?), just try talking to a few new people at once instead of one. If you alternate between talking to them, you probably won't have to worry about talking to someone too much or too little.

 

[Mason Stark]

@mangartist: Ooooo... I thought I was a ninja, not a mindreader. D: butawesomeeee *coughhack* Yup, it's veryvery depressing. Blargh .-. But I'm sorry that's happened to you, too. D: *gives cookie*

@tangerine: Oh yeah, that's a good point xD; And I'll try my best not to, even though it might take a bit. Thank you! :]

@king_mickey rule: Thank you! What you said is very helpful I've made lots of mistakes though (like embarassing stuff that I reallyreally dwell on) so might be hard to not be afraid of making them. D: Still, I'll try it!

@Sacred X: Thank you! What you said is really helpful as well! Especially about talking to more than one person. I've been doing that and yeahhhh... guess that's a bit of a bad idea then. Oops .-. Blargh.

But, about online relationships, must beg to differ a little bit. D: I'm under the impression that real life relationships suck (though not all of them) because, after getting out of public school to be homeschooled, the few friends that I had forgot about me and pretty much said/implied "screw you. :]" I also see most high schoolers and such (aka people the same age as me) as very obnoxious from the times I've had to go to a public high school. I can't get along with them no matter how hard I try. Online relationships, however, are better to me because the few friends that I have are some of the most amazing people. They're incredible friends! I've also met one of my online friends in real life, too. One of the reasons I get panicky and nervous sometimes is because I treat chats and such as face-to-face talking, partially since I know I can meet these people in real life.

tl;dr Uhh... I hate most kids in the public school system, they hate me back, and online friends are better to me, especially since you can meet them in real life. Yeahhhhh. XD; Anywho...

I'm using talking to people online as a stepping stone for actually talking to people face-to-face, because of the social phobia thing. Like, I'll start by talking to people in chats and go from stepping stone to stepping stone to get to talking to people, even if it's a few words. Hence why I'm worrying about this so much. 8D; And blargh, sorry for writing so much! Not trying to say "ZOMG THAT'S WRONG D:" Just trying to explain my situation a bit more. Thank you, thank you for the advice! :] I'll try that and see if it works.

 

[tangerine]

Real friendships don't work like that.

If you don't start somewhere then you won't get anywhere.

I also feel so copied by the other two. <:{

 

[Lolita]

I'm in a pretty similar position, actually. I haven't seen a doctor/therapist because my parents don't know how bad it is, and I don't plan to tell them, because my mom would just get mad at me. But, i've developed a serious inferiority complex to a really bad point that I would rather not say because people would tell me YOU NEED HELP, or something, and really, that doesn't help. I lock myself up in my room all day on my computer to talk to my internet friends and look up my Japanese stuff, anime, and all that.

I extremely disagree on the matter of internet friends said previously. My internet friends are the reason along with my parents I haven't tried committing suicide yet. All my real life "friends" have hurt me badly, and the person I know for 8 years who I thought would be the best person in my life turned out to be the one who's hurt me more than anyone in the world the past year. I love my internet friends and without them, i'm not who I am.

/SORRY FOR THE SELF RANT ;A; I just wanted to let you know you're not the only one in that lonely position, because if I have someone who's in similar position as me when i'm depressed, it makes me feel so much better that there's someone out there who can understand what's going on.

So, I suggest making more friends. Little by little, you can open up. And it's not like OKAY GO MAKE FRIENDS, because it's an extremely difficult thing to attach yourself to a person, especially in the position you're in, which like me, you find a person you can attach yourself to, but you'd be too attached to them, which that itself could drive you away.

One day, you'll realize who your real friends are, and you'll do that slowly and slowly. Making friends is wonderful, but it also includes a lot of hardships and issues. So, be strong, don't change yourself according to people's likes. You're who you are and the friends you'll make will love you for that. You don't need to give people your food or let them always copy from your homework or anything like that to make friends, because those are people who use you, and you should be aware of the fine line between "friends" and "acquaintances".

Make more friends online, you can open up however you want online especially with your truest friends, i'm the exact opposite online from irl. So, slowly break open through your shell by making some internet friends, because there are things you really can't do alone without a push. Then, you can start making friends in the real world.

 

[Sacred X]

@mangartist: Ooooo... I thought I was a ninja, not a mindreader. D: butawesomeeee *coughhack* Yup, it's veryvery depressing. Blargh .-. But I'm sorry that's happened to you, too. D: *gives cookie*

@tangerine: Oh yeah, that's a good point xD; And I'll try my best not to, even though it might take a bit. Thank you! :]

@king_mickey rule: Thank you! What you said is very helpful I've made lots of mistakes though (like embarassing stuff that I reallyreally dwell on) so might be hard to not be afraid of making them. D: Still, I'll try it!

@Sacred X: Thank you! What you said is really helpful as well! Especially about talking to more than one person. I've been doing that and yeahhhh... guess that's a bit of a bad idea then. Oops .-. Blargh.

But, about online relationships, must beg to differ a little bit. D: I'm under the impression that real life relationships suck (though not all of them) because, after getting out of public school to be homeschooled, the few friends that I had forgot about me and pretty much said/implied "screw you. :]" I also see most high schoolers and such (aka people the same age as me) as very obnoxious from the times I've had to go to a public high school. I can't get along with them no matter how hard I try. Online relationships, however, are better to me because the few friends that I have are some of the most amazing people. They're incredible friends! I've also met one of my online friends in real life, too. One of the reasons I get panicky and nervous sometimes is because I treat chats and such as face-to-face talking, partially since I know I can meet these people in real life.

tl;dr Uhh... I hate most kids in the public school system, they hate me back, and online friends are better to me, especially since you can meet them in real life. Yeahhhhh. XD; Anywho...

I'm using talking to people online as a stepping stone for actually talking to people face-to-face, because of the social phobia thing. Like, I'll start by talking to people in chats and go from stepping stone to stepping stone to get to talking to people, even if it's a few words. Hence why I'm worrying about this so much. 8D; And blargh, sorry for writing so much! Not trying to say "ZOMG THAT'S WRONG D:" Just trying to explain my situation a bit more. Thank you, thank you for the advice! :] I'll try that and see if it works.

I'll admit if you're mature for your age, then I can see where you're coming from. As a college student, I can't really stand anyone from High School, sometimes even first year college students.

However, I still wouldn't say having solely online relationships is healthy. You may have had some bad experiences, but those can occur online as well. It's good to know you have some online friends you can really get along with, but when college comes around, I'd recommend you branch out then and there.

 

[Jolts]

I've gone through the exact same thing, believe me.
While I don't actually have a solution for this (if I did then I probably wouldn't spend all my free time online XD) but you said that part of your problem is staying confident that you're not annoying. For me it's mainly social skills, and what I found helps is on online forums such as this, just practice saying what you would say in real life to the people here. I know that it isn't always going to be the same, but it does help somewhat.
My other piece of advice, and one I have trouble following myself, is just to go up to people and start talking. It at least beats awkward silences.