The Forms Of Social Anxiety

The Forms Of Social Anxiety
Social anxiety, or social phobia, is a condition that
doesn't necessarily have a great deal of notoriety, bit
it's a particularly painful and difficult dysfunction to
cope with. Those people who are aware of social anxiety,
perhaps in particular those who suffer with it, are likely
to define social anxiety in terms of being anxious in and
or fearful of social interaction. In truth however, social
anxiety can actually be defined as one of three conditions.

The most prevalent form of social anxiety is classified as
generalized social anxiety. Generalized social anxiety is a
form of social fear or social apprehension that isn't
related to any specific social situation. The person with
generalized social anxiety feels apprehension in the face
of any circumstance where they have the potential to be
noticed by others. This is an especially broad possibility:
the likelihood of being noticed in a social situation would
seem to be a constant. Given this then it's easy to see why
someone with generalized anxiety tends to move through life
in perpetual agitation and fear.

A second form of social anxiety is situation specific
social anxiety. Situation specific social anxiety is not
terribly uncommon in certain forms. Fear of public speaking
for example is a form of situation specific social anxiety
that many people share. There are some forms of situation
specific social anxiety though that can be quite disruptive
in the course of a person's everyday life. Some forms of
situation specific social anxiety include anxiety and fear
over using a public restroom, writing in public, and eating
in public. These are not uncommon activities to undertake,
yet some people will go to great lengths to avoid them,
sometimes even changing how they live their lives in the
process.

The final social anxiety form is often referred to as
avoidance disorder. This is the most extreme form of social
anxiety, and involves literally avoiding most social
situations in order to avoid the apprehension and fear
social situations elicit. Someone with avoidance disorder
can hide themselves away, avoiding any form of social
contact except with things that are completely familiar.
While this sort of behavior may come across and peculiar
and even amusing to some observers, the person with
avoidance disorder tends to suffer greatly because, like
most people, they covet interpersonal connection but can't
move past their fear to achieve it. The result is often a
very painful existence.

While social anxiety, in all of its forms, tends to be
painful and difficult the good news is that social anxiety
is an entirely treatable disorder. It's not necessarily
easy to overcome social anxiety, but it can absolutely be
accomplished. And once social anxiety is overcome, an
entire new world opens up for the person whose life was
once controlled by fear and apprehension.

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Zinn Jeremiah is an online author. Find help for anxiety by
visiting
http://www.hubonline.biz/confident-interactions.htm or
http://www.hubonline.biz/feel-better-today.htm .