I feel so out of place
Starting in about 6th grade I became very socially anxious to the point of having to be pulled out of public school. I’m 17 now and online, I am very confident and talkative but in person I almost shut down completely. I decided to get over my fear and join a volleyball team to get more active and make some IRL friends.
It goes pretty well in practice with just the team but when we are against another team especially with a crowd, I feel so out of place, I feel like everyone is staring at me. I went back and watched the recording of our match and I am acting weird with about 7 nervous ticks per second. Adjusting my shirt, cracking my knuckles, scratching my head, itching my arm, all of those constantly.
I’m usually a bench rider (fine by me) and I witness my teammates do these amazing plays with little to no praise from our team, yet when I get put into the game and make a very simple play, my team yells and cheers, surrounds me, screaming “GOOD SHIT TOM”. This may sound like a good thing but it honestly makes me feel kinda bad about myself. It makes me feel like a little kid that did something very basic but all the adults are telling me that it was awesome. I know they mean well by it but idk what to do. I love practicing with the team but I hate playing in games because of that.
1 comment
Hey, have you considered that you may be overanalyzing yourself in social situations since you haven’t had a lot throughout your life? I used to be in a similar situation; more likely than not, they aren’t treating you differently, and if you are being treated differently don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter how they treat you. Remember you joined to volleyball team to improve yourself, you joined to improve your social skills, that’s what you’re there for, that’s what should be your focus. A good tip I could give is to simply remember that in the grand scheme of things their approval doesn’t mean anything, you’re attempting to improve yourself and that’s all that matters.