Social Anxiety
Did you know that social anxiety did exist? Neither did I until I met my school mate whom I haven't seen since then. I came to know that he had this anxiety of not liking to be in the center of attention. He would be afraid to get criticized and hate to draw any kind of attention that might have resulted in some sort of embarrassment. So I thought he was just being shy. It turns out that there are many more people like my friend who get stage fright or are subjected to nervousness in front of a crowd. So my research has begun and I found out a lot of things about this "disorder".
We might have had friends who just went dumb on the stage while singing a song. We might have laughed the matter earlier, but the problem that this behavior relates to is very serious. In medical terms, it is known as the 'social anxiety disorder' or 'SAD'. It is a relatively less harmful form of anxiety disorder which may not affect the clinical health of an individual in a significant way, but it might hamper the mental development of the person and cause serious problems in his or her psychological well being.
Earlier, I used to think that people who suffered from this type of behavior were termed as people with low levels of confidence. But I was wrong as these people would easily get confused in the presence of a room full of people. They cannot express their views clearly, their thought process is distorted and they even blank out completely in some cases. Such cases are not to be taken lightly as the continued occurrence of such cases would ultimately result in the person getting into depression.
Social anxiety has its origins from two basic causes. It can be developed in an individual if he or she has been the witness of a very tragic occurrence. Such occurrences can include accidents, fire or more commonly, loss of loved ones. Further, in the earlier years of growing of the individual, if he or she is 'bullied' to extreme extents, then there is a possibility that they might to turn into introvert and reclusive individuals in their later years. Now, that got me worried about my friend.
Another common cause of this kind of anxiety is related to the 'hereditary transfer' of this trait from parents to their children. A child who has parents or a parent who suffers from this disorder can be subjected to the same thing. A lot of psychologists have discarded this theory as to being irrelevant as there is no relation of genes with the transfer of mental and psychological traits, but a significant faction of the medical world holds it true.
The extent to which this disorder can hurt people is not known, but it has been said that if a person gets to know about his shortcomings in the early years, he can be cured of it by clinical therapy or by subjecting himself to specific practices. The good news was my friend was already seeing a therapist and has improved a lot since then.
We might have had friends who just went dumb on the stage while singing a song. We might have laughed the matter earlier, but the problem that this behavior relates to is very serious. In medical terms, it is known as the 'social anxiety disorder' or 'SAD'. It is a relatively less harmful form of anxiety disorder which may not affect the clinical health of an individual in a significant way, but it might hamper the mental development of the person and cause serious problems in his or her psychological well being.
Earlier, I used to think that people who suffered from this type of behavior were termed as people with low levels of confidence. But I was wrong as these people would easily get confused in the presence of a room full of people. They cannot express their views clearly, their thought process is distorted and they even blank out completely in some cases. Such cases are not to be taken lightly as the continued occurrence of such cases would ultimately result in the person getting into depression.
Social anxiety has its origins from two basic causes. It can be developed in an individual if he or she has been the witness of a very tragic occurrence. Such occurrences can include accidents, fire or more commonly, loss of loved ones. Further, in the earlier years of growing of the individual, if he or she is 'bullied' to extreme extents, then there is a possibility that they might to turn into introvert and reclusive individuals in their later years. Now, that got me worried about my friend.
Another common cause of this kind of anxiety is related to the 'hereditary transfer' of this trait from parents to their children. A child who has parents or a parent who suffers from this disorder can be subjected to the same thing. A lot of psychologists have discarded this theory as to being irrelevant as there is no relation of genes with the transfer of mental and psychological traits, but a significant faction of the medical world holds it true.
The extent to which this disorder can hurt people is not known, but it has been said that if a person gets to know about his shortcomings in the early years, he can be cured of it by clinical therapy or by subjecting himself to specific practices. The good news was my friend was already seeing a therapist and has improved a lot since then.
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