Anxious People Don’t Hate You; We Hate Your Parties

Yesterday was my birthday! The day we celebrate me making it one more revolution around the sun, and this year, just like every other year, I asked for the same thing. “I want to ride my horse, eat dinner with my family and then go home, get naked and watch a movie.” That’s what I told my husband more than a week ago when he asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. He just laughed, shook his head and said sarcastically, “Oh, I’m shocked. I thought we were going to throw a big party with lots of people.” I grinned and thought to myself, “Yeah right. That will be the day.”

Here’s the thing. Birthdays tend to go hand and hand with celebrations, which is precisely the problem for us in the anxious communities. Celebrations usually have lots of people and noise and when you’re the one being celebrated… attention. Don’t cry anxious people, don’t cry. Reading about attention thankfully won’t bring it upon us, but I do think we need to talk about it. I just want the world to know that some of us actually mean it when we ask you not to throw us a party. You see, we don’t dislike people individually… just collectively. We don’t hate you; we hate your parties. We’re not ungrateful; we’re anxious. It’s not because you’ve done anything wrong, it’s just that some of us would rather tear our own eyeballs out than have that many people focusing their attention on us.

Okay, all jokes aside, social anxiety doesn’t affect every person with anxiety, but it’s definitely prominent in many sufferers. I’m unfortunately in the latter category as you probably derived from my husband’s previous sarcastic comment. Situations that a “normal” person might feel a little bit nervous about can be completely debilitating to me. It doesn’t affect me in all social situations either, just certain types. Anxiety is a jerk like that. It’s like this. I regularly teach classes at church and on my farm. I speak and sing in front of the entire congregation. I’ve acted in plays, sang in front of crowds, danced and debated. I can do all of these things with a relatively normal level of anxiety and excel in them, but even the thought of getting married in front of people put me over the edge.

When I was a teenager all of my friends would talk about their big, fancy dream weddings. I remember thinking that a fairy-tale type wedding sounded more like a nightmare to me, and I told them so. They assured me that I would change my mind when I met the “right guy” because I’d “want to show him off” to the whole world.

Well, strangely enough, that didn’t happen. When Seth asked me to marry him, I remember thinking that there was no way we could ever get married because I didn’t want to have a wedding. The thought of wearing a fancy dress and making intimate vows in front of people was enough to make me (very briefly) consider saying no!

Everything worked out in the end, of course. I didn’t buy a big, fancy dress. I bought a $10 orange polka-dotted dress. We didn’t have a big wedding. We got married on the lawn of my church, with only our immediate family attending. Some of them didn’t even show up, which was even more fine with me. Less is more I always say.

I use this example because it would be very easy for all of our friends and family to feel offended that we didn’t invite them. But it had nothing to do with them. It had to do with us, and me. Social anxiety decreases the threshold of tolerance that one has in social situations. It can take an otherwise happy event and make it unbearable. It feels like overwhelming fear, shame and humiliation.

To sum it all up, if you have a friend with social anxiety- try not to get offended. We’re doing the best we can to emerge from the depths of the safety of our homes, but sometimes we just need a break. Sometimes we need to leave the birthday party because it’s too much for us. Whether it’s speaking in front of a crowd or something as simple as going to the grocery store, people who have lived with anxiety for any length of time probably know their own limits. So be respectful and don’t get offended. We still love you; we just need our space. And if all else fails, send us food because we might be too anxious to get it ourselves.