When social anxiety makes you afraid of your friends

I had an experience this past weekend that jolted me and my first thought was how much I wanted to write you about it. 

I thought I was in a pretty good place, mentally. 

Since experiencing panic attacks, I have tried to do a lot of mental health work on myself to prevent myself from going through that again. I've made it a priority to try and keep my nervous system in a place of peace. 

How church is going lately

For reference, we haven't gone back to church in person yet (we are still able to attend the online meetings each week) and that makes me feel SO much better. Church anxiety is such a HUGE, overwhelming part of my social anxiety and such a huge part of why my nervous system has been taxed for years and years and years.  

On top of my regular levels of anxiety about going to church, our ward was recently combined with another full ward. I feel really stressed thinking of having to meet a bunch of new people. It's like the first day of school over and over again. Who wants to go through the get-to-know-you-phase? Not me. Plus we have to move in a few months and will have to do that anyway. I opt for not going through it twice.

In addition to that, I'm still not comfortable about being in large groups since COVID-19 hit. We still have cases popping up in our area and large crowds are the last place I want to be. When I see all the people packed into the pews, I think, there's no way I want to go back to that. 

My parents got COVID, even after being vaccinated, and my dad, in particular, got very, very sick and was hospitalized for a week. We were so afraid we were going to lose him. I don't want to risk getting exposed and unknowingly passing it on to my parents.  

Anway, I guess you could call it avoidance, but not going to church in person has helped me feel so much more at peace instead of feeling completely stressed out every week.

When a friend feels more like an enemy

Back to the "incident" that brought me here today.

We were out of town this past weekend, in a place I felt pretty safe not running into anyone I knew. My former boss visits this spot on occasion, so truthfully I find myself looking over my shoulder to make sure he doesn't pop out of a crowd, but for the most part, I feel pretty relaxed. No surprises. 

But there she was. An old co-worker / current friend I haven't seen in about 6 years, in the same grocery store I was in, 82 miles from home. A place I thought I was safe from running into someone I knew. 

I felt a sudden panic I haven't felt in a long time. Luckily I saw just the edge of her profile and back of her hair, as she and her new boyfriend made their way over to the deli counter. I had just enough of a visual to know it was her. And in a moment of panic, like a trapped rabbit, I knew I had to get out of there.

I consider this girl a friend. We bonded when we worked together and stayed in touch after we both left that job. We currently chat on social media every week and in fact, just a couple days ago we were texting about what we were going to do this very weekend. I told her we may visit this place. And there she was. Right where I said I would be, yet I never expected her to be standing, just 15 feet from me, in this small town grocery store. 

Trapped rabbit. Where do I go to get out of here?

I don't know if my husband noticed my sudden change in behavior. 

The grocery store was packed (as it was Memorial Weekend) and we had to navigate through both hoards of people and empty shelves, to figure out what we were going to pick up for the next couple of days. 

And now I couldn't even think. I stood there and mentally asked myself the question, in as calm manner as I could, "So what if you do run into her? Could you handle it?" 

I used to have to ask myself this question before going into my calling in Young Women's, right after sacrament meeting. My anxiety was always high anticipating the next hour. Sitting in a circle, chatting with the other leaders, being in charge of something, being put on the spot to answer a question...I was always just one anxiety attack away from exiting stage left and never coming back. 

So after each sacrament meeting, I would mentally ask myself these questions, "What if you're totally embarrassed, or are put on the spot, or do something stupid, could you handle it?" And despite all the risks, my answer was generally, "Yes." I could handle it. So I went. Week after week after week, with anxiety buzzing in the background.

But in this moment - could I risk running into this friend of mine, who I so easily chatted with online each week but who I would suddenly be face-to-face with after all these years?

No. It was a hard no. I felt my brain implode a little bit and I knew I couldn't let that happen.

The Getaway

So as my husband and I stood in the aisle next to the yogurt and cheese, I secretly started to calculate an avoidance plan in my head.  She's at the deli now. Will they leave after that or will they do more shopping? Should we head to the other end of the store? Should we just keep walking down this aisle? What if she pops up face-to-face with me in another aisle?

And that's when I quickly went from an avoidance plan to an immediate exit strategy. 

I had to get out of this store and I had to do it without her seeing me.

I usually tell my husband about my weird anxiety moments, but instead, I decided to blame my sudden need to leave the store on the crowds. The store was legitimately packed. Check-out lines were strung out down the aisles and the shelves were nearly empty. Under other circumstances, I probably would have toughed it out, but under social anxiety duress, I was not going to make it.

And that's when I told him, in a calm voice, trying to hide the anxiety I felt in my soul, I just needed to get out of there. It was too crowded and felt like a zoo. Since this was the only grocery store in this little town, he just said, "Ok, maybe if we come back later it won't be so busy."

And then I did something a little weird. Ok, I guess you could call it even weirder than what I was already doing.

I walked us all the way down to the other end of the store, to the exit doors that were on the opposite end of where our car was, to avoid seeing my friend who was at the deli, which happened to be right in front of the exit doors that were right in front of our car.

I wonder if my husband thought, what in the world are you doing? But he just quietly followed behind my maze of crazy. 

I had to laugh at myself later (at the time I could not) because it made absolutely NO sense to do what I did. But a scared rabbit will find a way out even if it is running across a huge field to avoid the dog at the fence that is right in front of you. 

And while this is all quite comical, at the time it wasn't. Even now it really isn't. I feel very ashamed and very embarrassed that I, a grown woman, was so afraid of seeing my friend face to face and having to talk to her and catch up after all this time, that I made a mad dash to avoid her at all cost. 

Not one of my finer moments. And somehow, I thought I was over having more moments like this. I thought I was at a peaceful place in my mind, and as such, talking to an old friend wouldn't feel like I was under attack. I thought I was over this. It felt like I took 100 steps back, like I was going to be someone who hides forever.

So what happened next?

More hiding.

We went to our favorite restaurant, but the place was packed so we decided to leave. And truth be told, I was still on high alert, fearing my friend might show up there too, so I wasn't sad we were leaving. I had to protect myself. I had to get away from any possibility of running into her at all. Ever. 

So I talked my husband into going to another town about 25 minutes away so we could eat at the same restaurant, just in a different city, and then get our groceries in peace.

And that's what we did. And it felt absolutely wonderful. There were no crowds. There were no lines. And my friend was nowhere in sight. I felt such a huge wave of relief wash over me, it was like a weight was lifted off my chest. 

I had this nagging bad feeling in the back of my mind that my husband didn't know the real truth about why I had led us on this wild goose chase, so I kind of justified it by accentuating the fact that it was so much nicer to be out of the crowds. He agreed, but on a totally different level of understanding.

Avoidance is my drug of choice

I know avoiding these circumstances isn't healthy, and isn't actually helping, but I just couldn't face her. I couldn't handle her looking at me face-to-face, having me introduce my husband, her introducing her boyfriend, talking about what we're doing here, how life has been, blah, blah, blah. All of it was like being placed under a bright spotlight- fear, flaws and all. And I just couldn't do it. I had been in this position once before with an old family friend, and I had crumbled under the surprise and pressure of it all, choked my way through the conversation and felt absolutely horrible about it. I just couldn't face that again.

I know the adrenaline rush of avoidance is addicting. I thought I was over it, but evidently it's still my drug of choice. I don't know how to change this. I've said before, I really would love to live in a cabin in the woods where I feel safe and don't have to experience this anxiety that makes me afraid of talking to people and even afraid of my friends. 

Maybe I have regressed since being given actual permission to avoid people due to the quarantines and limitations of covid-19. But whatever the reason, I realized I'm clearly not over my social anxiety as it, once again, stared me right in the face and I kept on running.