Soical Anxiety

Abstract

Some people have fears about spiders or heights but people with social anxiety disorder are afraid of being in everyday social situations. It is natural for someone to feel nervous when meeting new people or when speaking in front of a group but being afraid to go to work because of having to interact with other people, in not natural. Social anxiety disorder affects ten million Americans, occurring more frequently in women. However, today there is help for these people, there are drugs that can help overcome these fears and get people back on track.

Making Sense of Social Anxiety

A woman stops at a gas station to fill up her tank. She cautiously gets out of her car and scans her surroundings and the few people around her. She hates having to stop and get gas because she feels that the people around her are watching her, judging her every action. The whole time that she is pumping the gas, she is conscious of the fact that someone might be watching her from the camera in the store. Her anxiety is overwhelming her, so she quickly pays for her gas and leaves. Back on the road, the woman repeatedly goes over the incident at the gas station in her mind, believing that she has made a complete fool of herself.

Believe it or not, there are over 10.5 million Americans that suffer from similar thoughts everyday. For most people, there is not a second thought given to the process of getting gas, but the story is very different for someone who has social anxiety disorder. To better understand this disorder, one must first understand what social anxiety is, what its symptoms are, how it affects people, what causes it and how it is treated.

Social anxiety; sometimes known as social phobia, is a common form of anxiety disorder that causes sufferers to experience intense anxiety in some or all social interactions and public events of everyday life (Farlex, 2005). This anxiety and self-consciousness arise from a fear of being closely watched, judged and...