I feel so alone for some reason. I am making a schedule for next week. Fighting sadness. Wishing people at work understood, but they don't. I wish the world understood, but most don't. It's all good, but I think the first two paragraphs really state it well.

My T shared this with me off of the site of

This comes from the social anxiety institute
Psychologist/Director, Social Anxiety Institute

I couldn't have written it better. This was very validating for m.e

All day, every day, life is like this. Fear. Apprehension. Avoidance. Pain. Anxiety about what you said. Fear that you said something wrong. Worry about others' disapproval. Afraid of rejection, of not fitting in. Anxious to enter a conversation, afraid you'll have nothing to talk about. Hiding what's wrong with you deep inside, putting up a defensive wall to protect your "secret". You are undergoing the daily, chronic trouble of living with this mental disorder we call social anxiety disorder.

Very few people understand the agonizing and traumatic depth of social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety makes people go inside themselves and try to "protect" this secret. Most people with social anxiety disorder try to hide it from others, especially from family and loved ones. There is fear that family members may find out they suffer from social anxiety, and then view them differently or outright reject them. This is almost never true, but the fear of this happening makes many people with social anxiety stay in their dark closet.

*If you are seeking treatment for social anxiety, start here*

Social anxiety disorder (social phobia) is the third largest psychological problem in the United States today. Millions of people quietly endure this pain every day, believing there is no hope for them getting better.
What is social anxiety like?

A man finds it difficult to walk down the street because he’s self-conscious and feels that people are watching him from their windows. Worse, he may run into a person on the sidewalk and be forced to say hello to them. He’s not sure he can do that. His voice will catch, his "hello" will sound weak, and the other person will know he’s frightened. More than anything else, he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s afraid. He keeps his eyes safely away from anyone else’s gaze and prays he can make it home without having to talk to anyone.

A woman hates to stand in line in the grocery store because she’s afraid that everyone is watching her. She knows that it’s not really true, but she can’t shake the feeling. While she is shopping, she is conscious of the fact that people might be staring at her from the big mirrors on the inside front of the ceiling. Now, she has to talk to the person who’s checking out the groceries. She tries to smile, but her voice comes out weakly. She’s sure she’s making a fool of herself. Her self-consciousness and her anxiety rise to the roof.

Another person sits in front of the telephone and agonizes because she’s afraid to pick up the receiver and make a call. She’s even afraid to call an unknown person in a business office about the electric bill because she’s afraid she’ll be "putting someone out" and they will be upset with her. It’s very hard for her to take rejection, even over the phone, even from someone she doesn’t know. She’s especially afraid to call people she knows because she feels that she’ll be calling at the wrong time -- the other person will be busy — and they won’t want to talk with her. She feels rejected even before she makes the call. Once the call is made and over, she sits, analyzes, and ruminates about what was said, what tone it was said in, and how she was perceived by the other person....her anxiety and racing thoughts concerning the call prove to her that she "goofed" this conversation up, too, just like she always does. Sometimes she gets embarrassed just thinking about the call.