Anita,

I agree, I think I am a very outgoing person naturally. My 2 younger brothers have so many friends. They are very outgoing. So it makes sense that I am the same way. But for some reason…. I can be verry quiet and very shy in person. This makes me question… why am I so shy? Why am I so quiet? Because I know that naturally I am not. For some reason I am very afraid of saying/doing the wrong things. I am afraid to be myself. Honestly though, I see myself slowly changing to be less awkward/shy. People say the exact same thing you say when they get to know me. They say I am expressive, loud, funny, etc. When I said I had no personality, no brains, and all that stuff, those were just mean things people had said to me in the past. I think I often replay the mean things people tell me in my head. It is almost like sometimes I get in these bad moods where I get very sad and tell myself I am not worth it. Stupid people (who don’t know me at all, they are just dumb and judgmental) have said those things about me. One person I used to be friends with talked very bad about me saying I had no personality (a very mean way of pointing out my shyness), while another stupid person had called me dumb and brainless.

And as for my mom thing, I am not sure. Your right, when I posted that thread about my mom telling me the story about preschool, I felt like it made me feel something was wrong with me. Right now, I am in a pretty healthy state of mind to say that most of my self deprecation comes from my very low self esteem. Now, I can confidently say there is nothing wrong with, that I do have a strong personality, and that I am not brainless. However, there are so many moments where I feel so worthless. And I will just replay all the negative things people say about me and start believing them. I will begin to see myself very negatively, and when I look back at all the negative things people say about me I think “oh, so this is how I seem to the world”

I went out this weekend with my friends and I was very outgoing and not awkward at all (like I have been in the past). I was meeting new people and having a really good time. I felt good. Even though there is still so much more to talk about in this thread, I feel like I have gained some confidence in myself back. Just simply realizing that my shyness/social anxiety probably comes from something in my childhood (that wasn’t my fault) makes me feel more confident in myself.

But I think it is important to tell you that in social situations (usually) I feel very awkward and anxious. My body tenses up, I don’t feel comfortable. I literally can’t help being awkward. It completely causes me to shut down, I can’t even talk normally or be myself. But so far I have felt more confident in myself that I haven’t reacted that way. I think talking about this with you has helped a lot so far, even in the slightest way. I just wanted to note that

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Katie.