Hi Fallen Down,

I can hear how paralyzing your anxiety has become for you in your life and how helpless you feel in not being able to control your emotions in social situations. I’d imagine it was an awful experience to be meeting new people and become physically ill from the stress. It’s as though your mind and body have betrayed you and left you fighting a battle you don’t feel you can win.

I get the sense that the idea of attending school when you’re still reeling from the other night is a nearly impossible task for you — like you’ve been climbing up hill and suddenly you’re carrying a backpack filled with bricks.

I’m wondering if your boyfriend or anyone else is able to support you when you feel your anxiety taking over? While we can’t give you advice we are definitely here to support you through this difficult time. Our forum is always here for you to post to and we have an online chat service that is open 6-11pm PST every night if you want to talk to someone privately and one-on-one.

The Support Team

I can understand this anxiety you’re feeling not in the exact same way of course but I do understand it so you know if you want to maybe talk with me about it I’d appreciate having someone to converse with over the matter of social anxiety or just anxiety in general.

Ok
No problem
I have social anxiety too so I know how it feels it’s pretty annoying and kind of terrible so if you’re trying to work it out you have to do it in baby steps so you don’t get stressed out.
You could do small exercises like maybe meeting with your boyfriend’s friends one at a time over a certain amount of time in a place you feel comfortable at and then after you kind of get to know them more you could start hanging out with them in small then larger groups because I don’t know about you but large groups of strange people can be pretty terrifying and overwhelming and that exercise might help relieve that stress a bit.
What’s your opinion?

I’m going to have to try that tip!
It’s kind of like you have to take everything in small doses and after a while you should start to get used to it.
I guess you could also make a social interactions map so like writing down social tasks or objectives or something like that from small and easy to large and difficult and work your way through them.

Terezi and Fallen Down, it’s wonderful to see you sharing tips and words of support with each other to help cope with anxiety. Thank you for helping one another feel a little less alone in this world, as well as others who may be browsing this forum and feeling anxious and alone.

As always, know that we are here for both of you for support, as you have been for each other

The Support Team