High school is a nostalgic period in life's journey. It is a time where lifelong friendships are made, hearts are broken, and one's biggest worry is selecting a date for the senior prom. It is also a time for teenagers to branch out, gain independence, and begin their trek for self-discovery. For most individuals, this picture of high school is accurate. However, my sister's experience was anything but a reflection of what I described above. She does not look back on that era in her life with longing, but rather with unease and distress. These uncharacteristic feelings of her high school years are due to the fact that for almost the entire four years, She suffered from social anxiety disorder.
Social anxiety or social phobia can be defined as an intense fear of social situations involving interaction with other people. Furthermore, it is the fear of being judged and evaluated by everyone including one's peers as well as stranger. It is one of the least understood disorders by psychologists and affects only 7% of the population. In most cases, individuals afflicted with the problem do not recognize they are suffering from this disorder and often mistake it for shyness. Unfortunately, she fit into this group and did not identify her ailment until nearly four years after its commencement.
For Bianca, living with social anxiety was comparable to living in her own personal prison cell. It was a prison cell she slowly and unconsciously built around her self as a means of alienating and protecting her self from the threatening outside world. She had a deep-rooted fear of interacting and forming relations with other teenagers. She imagined that every person she spoke to was secretly analyzing and criticizing her flaws. Everyday activities like going to the mall, which most teenagers love and take for granted, became nearly impossible hurdles to overcome. She can vividly remember walking through the crowded halls of our high school and routinely having anxiety attacks because she felt she was on display in front of the whole student body.
