How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by psychologist Ellen Hendriksen offers cognitive behavioural therapy-based strategies to help readers overcome social anxiety. The author herself has experienced social anxiety, and I always like when authors are willing to be vulnerable and add that personal touch. The book is aimed …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is fear of missing out (FOMO). Fear of missing out, more commonly known as FOMO, is a form of social anxiety (although not a social anxiety disorder). It involves a pervasive apprehension that others might be engaging in …
I started writing this when thinking about the COVID pandemic being better suited to introverts than extroverts, although the social isolation isn’t necessarily easy for introverts either. I thought I’d treat to tease apart the constructs of loneliness, social anxiety, and introversion/extroversion. To start off, what’s a psychological construct? It’s a representation of an intangible …
Loneliness, Social Anxiety, and Introversion–Extroversion Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is selective mutism. Selective mutism (SM) is a rare disorder that begins in childhood and is characterized by an inability to speak in select social contexts (hence the “selective” part of the name). It used to be called …
This post is a follow-up to a conversation that Winter Dragonflies and I were having about different mental errors that can feed into social anxiety. We all have a natural set of cognitive biases that can result in mental errors, so I wanted to take a look at what some of those might be. Cognitive …
Cognitive Biases that Can Feed into Social Anxiety Read More »
The Anxiety Book for Trans People by Freiya Benson aims to support trans and other non-cis identities in dealing with anxiety. Benson has previously published Trans Love, an anthology of trans and non-binary voices. The book focuses on experiences of anxiety, and in particular anxiety related to having non-cis identities, rather specifically on anxiety disorders. …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is avoidant personality disorder. Avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) falls within the DSM-5‘s cluster C of anxious/fearful personality disorders. It’s characterized by intense feelings of inadequacy and fear of social rejection, and avoidance is relied upon as a coping …
Red Face by Russell Norris is a memoir of living with social anxiety disorder—with a twist. The red face of the title comes from a condition the author has called idiopathic craniofacial erythema, which produces intense and often unprovoked facial blushing. He also developed erythrophobia, where blushing itself becomes a source of fear. It sounds …
In this emerging blogger post, Matthew of Matt’s Mishaps, writes about his experiences with social anxiety during college. Prior to attending postsecondary school, I was completely clueless as to what being a college student was, or what going to a university for four years entailed for my future. Living away from home, taking harder classes, …
How College Bested Me and My Anxiety (Guest Post) Read More »
Mental illness can make it hard to be around people for a few different reasons. One of the common ones is social phobia, but it’s not the only reason. Social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder, can be a crippling condition that makes it extremely difficult to be around people. It affects around 13% …
Why Depression Makes it Hard to Be Around People Read More »
