I'm not very good with people. If you don't start a conversation we won't have one. You ever heard of the idea that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually believe it. This was my lie. So I kept waiting for the day I would finally be able to show my true colors without the fear of being judged but that day never came. Remember that quiet kid in your class the one that used to sit in the very back and never raise their hand. Yeah! That's me always too scared to speak up fighting my battles inside my head and losing each and every one of them. 

A couple years later not much has changed. We are about to witness may seem funny until you realize how tragic it actually is. Social anxiety doesn't just ruin your life it stops you from living it at all. Self consciousness on steroids that's the perfect description. My life seems quite normal on the surface or I don't think anybody knows but my world is black and white. 

Everything I do has got to be perfect because if I make a mistake people will remember it judge and laugh until I die. At least that's how I see it. All the little things you take for granted made me extremely nervous so I end up sweaty blushing with a shaky voice and a blank mind I have no idea how to operate smalltalk. So I practice for an hour in front of the mirror before I order a coffee. But you can't just shut yourself in you're an adult now and living is not gonna make itself. It's hard to get and keep a job though. Because it always involves human interaction so I usually give up halfway through because I can't even enter a room full of people let alone talk to them besides talking to authority figures is terrifying. So most of the time I subconsciously want to be late so that I can avoid the meeting altogether.

 Now you probably already guessed my love life is not exactly thrilling. Every time I agree to go out I instantly regret it wishing I was back in my comfortable bed. And before I leave the house, I practice all the different conversations that might take place the meeting itself. Its just a bunch of uncomfortable silences and some serious wall admiring and in the end I get completely wasted because it helps with anxiety. The problem is I talk nonsense when I'm drunk. So the next day you wake up in terror over-analyze what happened last night and identify non-existent flaws and after an hour of going through each and every detail of what happened you decide he probably hates you. And then he calls. It's a call you will not answer and you'll try hard to avoid the guy because you really like him which makes no sense. I know the most frustrating part is that I know I'm being irrational. Now isn't it funny how those who are terrified of human interaction or still more attentive than other I think people can tell you really listen instead of just staring blankly into the void waiting for our turn to speak ? Maybe that's why I keep attracting where does it end up in extremely awkward situations.

 Lesson learned. Never take your headphones off in public. 

I have to admit though I'm not a complete outcast but I don't think my friends understand my social anxiety very well. I guess I come off as uninterested or rude but in reality I'm just too terrified to speak. I try my best though because alone can turn into lonely pretty fast. So I am all dressed up trying to remember how humans work before I leave the house. And every single time I know I can't stay but I don't know how to leave and all I'm left with in that moment is Art. Art allows you to gift-wrap your feelings with words and images so they you can hand them over for public consumption without any personal judgement. Nobody needs to know that this one might be about you now you may be wondering if there's anything you can do about it and the answer is locked away for one simple word.

                                                Therapy

You build up your hopes you try your best and then you fall apart days fast before you finally managed to pick up the pieces and clumsily put them together each time a part of you gets lost and you know you're never getting it back. but I learned that which does not matter, truly slide. Because I know that with every piece I was along the way a new best one will always fill their empty space and even though I'm not there yet I know there will come a day when I'm the one in charge.