It was gradual and I didn’t really see it until it seemed too late to fix. I’m 28 now and just finally graduated with my bachelors degree. The reason it took me 10 years to graduate is because I wouldn’t go to class. I would literally sit in my dorm room/apartment for several days, sometimes weeks without going outside. I realize now that I have severe social anxiety, but back then I just thought nobody understood/liked me. I have lost almost all of my friends. I still have a couple that live in other cities, but I’m absolutely sure that if I lived there and had to interact with them on a daily basis, I would shy away from them as well.

I’ve realized that it’s because I’m terrified of judgement. I’m always afraid that if people get to know me, they won’t like me. I desperately want lots of friends, lots of love and lots of affection, but I can’t take the risk of having my heart broken. I’m afraid that if someone gets to know me, I’ll start liking them but they’ll begin to dislike me. Or they’ll just turn out to be mean and hurtful towards me.

I have a self-deprecating mother who was emotionally abusive while I was growing up, and still is today. Anytime I would talk to her about ideas I had for my future, she would (and still does) shoot them down immediately without a second thought. She taught me that no matter what I do, it’s wrong, whether it is a purse I buy from the mall, a diet that I want to try or even plans that I make to further my career.

I have always had a weight problem ever since I can remember. I was constantly picked on by my family (my mom and her sisters and their kids were all especially cruel to me). I wouldn’t even wear a swimsuit at the pool because my mother constantly criticized my body. She wouldn’t use any discretion either. She would blurt out really hurtful things aimed at me in front of other people, even boys that I liked, things like “Oh my god, Marie, look at the size of your butt!” and “Look at those fat rolls on your back! Even Mrs. Yurick can’t believe how fat you’re getting!”… These things she was yelling out about a 9 year old… in public… I went through long periods of starvation and purging in high school and college, which was diagnosed as “non-purging bulimia” bordering on anorexia. I would eat one meal about every two or three days, just to keep from passing out… I haven’t had any relapses for over a year now.

In high school my mother and all her sisters would call me a lesbian because I never had a boyfriend, but then the few times I went out on dates, my mother called me a whore. I still to this day have never had a boyfriend, because I don’t want anyone to see me with my clothes off…

Then there were the yearly “sit-downs” that my mother had with me and my sisters. Ever since I can remember, every year, my mother would sit us down at the table and tell us that her and my dad were getting a divorce and that things were going to be difficult for us from now on. By the time I was 16 or 17 my sisters and I were telling her to just do it because we don’t care anymore. They never divorced.

When I was 13, I told my mother that I wanted to go into business and start up a healthy fast food restaurant. (this was in 1996, several years before the big “healthy restaurant” craze hit. She told me it was a stupid idea and that I would be wasting my time because no one would every want healthy fast food. Being the obedient daughter that I was, I accepting her answer and put that idea right out of my mind.

When I was picking a college, any proposed career plan I brought to the table, my mother told me how I was going to fail. She said things like “that’s too competitive, you’ll never make it in that industry.” and “You won’t be able to do that, it’s too much work and you’re lazy.” I believed her. I didn’t realize at the time that she was wrong. I was not lazy. In high school I was in about 6 extra curricular activities PLUS worked. One program that I had my heart set on was fashion design and merchandising at FIT in New York. I was so passionate about design. I’m very artistic. It’s the only area where I wasn’t criticized (because I kept my art very private. I would actually hide my sketchbooks in the basement so my mother wouldn’t find them when she would go through my room, which she did and still does about once a week (yes, I’m 28 years old and my mother still searches my room, and I should mention the reason I’m still at home is because I haven’t been able to get a job in my field yet, and my mother scared me into living at home to save money)…

When I was a sophomore in college, my mother began a regular weekly rant to me about my dad’s family. My father’s family is very… proper might be the right word to use. They are very intelligent people, doctors, teachers, businesspeople, with good jobs and big, loving families. My mother’s family on the other hand are not even high school graduates; they fight constantly, spread rumors about each other behind their backs, and hire detectives to find out things to sue each other over, yes, these are sisters doing this to each other… Needless to say, I identify more closely with my dad’s family (something my mother has always hated about me.)

So during these rants, she would tell me about how my grandparents never loved me, and they always excluded me from everything when I was a baby. She even told me that my dad didn’t even come to the hospital when I was born because he was with a new girlfriend (my parents got married 3 years after I was born). I asked my dad about this, and he said he was there with my aunt, waiting in the expectant lounge the whole time until I was born. My mom also said that my grandmother didn’t even know about me until I was 3 years old… I asked my dad about this too, and he again said that it isn’t true, that everyone in his family knew when my mom was pregnant and loved me from the start. My grandmother always rubbed my back when I went to visit her and told me how pretty I was, something I found out later she did with all her children and grandchildren, which made me feel even more loved and non-excluded.

I always loved my dad’s family. They were always so nice to me, and there was a feeling of warmth I got from just being around them. Something I don’t ever feel when I’m around my mother and her family.

I just recently attended my grandma’s funeral (on my dad’s side) and I was sitting between my two favorite cousins. I felt so safe and loved and just, at ease. My mother didn’t even go to the viewing or the funeral… maybe that’s why I felt so peaceful… anyway, so here I am at the viewing, feeling very loved and comforted, and my older sister (who is actually my cousin on my mom’s side, but her mother is a drug addict, so my parents raised her since she was 7, so I call her my sister, and as with most of the people on my mom’s side, I don’t really like her that much as a person, she’s very manipulative and selfish) comes over and tells me to come sit with her and my younger sister. So I agree, because I think I really should be sitting with my family during this kind of event. So I get up and follow her. She goes all the way to the back of the room, behind a hoard of strangers, and sits down on the other side of her lesbian girlfriend (for real, lesbian girlfriend). So there’s just a seat left next to her girlfriend, and my younger sister is nowhere to be seen. Turns out, she’s sitting in the VERY back row with just her boyfriend. Now I’m looking at my sisters and I’m like, why aren’t we sitting together? And why aren’t we sitting over in the private room with the rest of the family?! My sisters don’t see this as a big deal. So my older sister switches places with her girlfriend and was like, is that better? I was getting really upset with this seating situation, but my uncle had started speaking at the front of the room and I didn’t want to make a scene by going all the way across the room while he was praying, so I just sat down and kept my mouth shut. Here we are at my grandma’s funeral, and I’m surrounded by strangers, my dad who just lost his mother is sitting all the way across the room without his family and I can’t even see my grandmother’s casket over the heads of all these people… Now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t really remember if this story had anything to do with my social anxiety, because I really don’t have anxiety around my dad’s family…

I’m sure this isn’t everything that has contributed to my social anxiety, but when I start to dig deep into my psyche, these are the things that stand out above everything else that bothers me. I have NO self-confidence. Any time I even start to feel good about myself, little voices start to tell me I’m not any good, not worth anything to anybody and I feel almost instantly depressed and the feelings that I can do something completely vanish. It’s as if I’m neck deep in a dirt hole, and any time I try to climb out, someone comes and puts their boot on my head and pushes me back down…