TL;DR: Can't summarize absolutely colossal post, but even if you aren't willing to read all of this, I'd really really appreciate an upvote in order to push this post to people who might be able to help. I truly appreciate it. Thank you.
Hello everyone! I am a 17 year old guy, and just recently (in late april) I've managed to realize how I am unable to be who I want to be — I might not even be as introverted as I thought I am. So long story short, I wasn't able to help my classmate (aquintance) over a stress and emotional issue when I am really the type of person who is able to help others with stuff like that. I realized I was being held back by social anxiety from who I wanted to be.
After that, in may I ended up doing what I've done for the past 8 years pretty much, I went onto the internet and started learning. In one month I've managed to diagnose myself with a 99% certainty of social anxiety (mainly with aquintances and not trusting them, I am easily able to do converstations with my friends) and OCD.
I've also managed to narrow down the primary fear to be fear of losing control. I have a few facts holding this statement up.: Doing almost anything around aquintances makes me anxious. I am also unable to trust/be vulnerable around aquintances whatsoever even though it's neccessary for those to turn into friendships. All my friends initiated something with me first. They always did the first few steps, to which I responded accordingly and it went on from there. I always go in assuming the worst even though I am an idealist. My brain just makes me do that with them, when let's face it, they are probably amazing people aswell. That doesn't happen around friends, family or strangers. None of it, not even with strangers. Why? Well, it's not happening because
friends and familiy — I trust them and that trust is held up by extensive behavioural analysis done by my brain on all their past behaviour, with what exactly I can trust them and with what not.
strangers — I will likely never meet them again, practically removing them from my life after the encounter.
but with aquintances something strange happens here.:
aquintances — I don't trust them yet, but there is also no quick way to just remove them from my life. In theory, if they happen to be horrible people and I trust them by being vulnerable to them and they decide they want to ruin my life with that knowledge, they could.
And that could is giving them way too much power according to my brain's logic, even if that is an extremely unlikely scenario and they don't have any reason to do so anyway. Of course, it's easy for me to say these and I know it's insane how I am thinking that, but anxiety doesn't just go away because of this knowledge.
Basically by being vulnerable to them, I would be giving them the oppertunity to use that against me, I am basically giving them an irrevocable license to do whatever they want to do with that thought of mine, which my brain really doesn't like the idea of when it doesn't have factual proof (like past experiences about their behaviour) of them not abusing that.
Now I am going to a psychologist, it feels like it's helping overall, but I've came to the sad realization that this won't just give me a free no anxiety permanent card, so this stuff just won't go away unless I put myself into anxiety inducing situations on purpose. I can't just stay as far away from aquintances as possible.
In reality most of my classmates are awesome as far as I know. We have no bullying, everyone's supporting eachother, and in general everyone accepts everyone. So why is my brain doing this? I'll give you the thoughts which currently keep me awake at night, maybe you know why it's happening:
What if me talking more to others creates some sort of snowball/avalanche effect which ends up somehow disrupting friend circles and I singlehandedly somehow end up ruining some friendships by taking friends away from others, thus those others hating me now, attacking me, or using things against me.
What if the person I try to be vulnerable to ends up using that against me? It's not like I can stop them after I said something.
What if I get somehow humiliated in front of everyone including my aquintances? Even worse, what if they keep saying that and use that against me?
As you can see, all of them start with What if-s and all of them have some sort of correlation with fear of losing control.
No matter what I do, no matter how much I know how unlikely that is, I am still extremely afraid of it.
Extra context in case you might be able to help: I've always been a careful kid. Like always. Being on the internet since the age of 9 might've made me more skeptical overall since I saw all the bad stuff like scamming happening around, I've never been scammed before due to my careful nature, but I saw others not so fortunate fall for things like that and I've always felt really bad for them thus avoiding these situations even more. I have an amazing and supportive family, so it probably didn't come from there, although I was pretty sheltered aswell which probably did some stuff aswell, although I believe I became the way I am due to that exact reason, so I couldn't be happier it happen this way, since I can always look at each day and my future with hope, plans and maximum positivity due to my idealism. I always actively tried and try to make my life as convenient as possible as long as I don't give negativity with that to others, only neutral or positive, and it's extra great when I can give some positivity to others while doing so. I have good grades and I study well compared to others, this also scares me a bit, since when you are up at the top it's easy to fall, even if just a bit people can overreact to people at the top falling, that's just human nature.
So, what's the plan? I've been thinking heavily about sending an empathetic text to the classmate that I wasn't able to help with that in april in order to make my first move against this insanity. The text would be basically this post but much shorter and much less detailed, about how I found out how I have this due to them, thank you for making me realize and now I really want to change so maybe you can help me? Now, when that thought appeared in my brain, it immediately started puking out these "reasons" of why that is a horrible idea. What if they think I am insane for thinking about them for this long? What if they think I am extremely weird for this. What if they go around telling everyone (this one actually has a realistic enough chance of happening, but not in a bad way, just them telling it to their friends. — but this could get out of hand — losing control brrr) What if, what if, what if, what if… you get the point. So I am in a stalemate with my own brain, and I'll likely not be able to make the move due to me just overthinking this and ending up running out of time, since with september school starts and then sending a text will really be weird since I could talk to them in person, but lets face it in person communication will not work with anxiety like this when I can't even send a text. So, this post is basically my silent but loud at the same time outcry for help with this stupid situation.
Also, what should be the reason for sending the text if you believe it is the correct idea? To ask them for help? Help in what way? To ask them to talk with me? Or as an informative text to them and a general thank you? I believe the person is empathetic according to my best believes, even though we didn't talk much, but when we did I really enjoyed it, maybe that's why my brain wants to talk to them.
So, maybe after all that, you might be able to somehow help me out. If you actually read all that, you truly are a legend, especially if you even help me somehow. Thank you so much for all the upvotes, comments and any way in which you are able to help me. Truly, thank you. Thank you for your answers in advance! 😀 🙂