For the most part when I was younger I was very outgoing and talkative. For some reason I became a more quiet individual and started to keep to myself more often. I didn’t know how much damage this would’ve done. Even though I was always surrounded by my peers at school I never made an effort to speak I was just silent. Ever since then I started feeling extremely self conscious and nervous unfortunately this feels automatic anytime I’m around people. I have no clue how being quiet causes this fear of overthinking when around others.
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I was the same way I think it’s to make up for the lack of external living. I’d find myself “being myself” in my head but not real life because of anxiety.
Your brain gets used to what you do often. So if you don’t talk a lot then it becomes a habit, you hold yourself back, don’t speak your mind. Speaking up becomes like a chore, it’s something extra that you have to expend energy to do. Your brain likes to do what it is familiar with because it has established strong connections in those pathways. It’s like learning a new skill, riding a bike or painting. At first it’s hard because you’ve never done it before AND it’s tiring because your brain is forming new paths. Basically the anxiety you feel is just your brain stopping you from “hurting yourself”, it’s assessing dangers and risks, the expenditure of energy and getting anxious is one day to stop you from acting. Like when you’re going to do something dangerous like bungee jumping, you don’t want to do it the first time because your brain is weighing up the risks and output of energy. It doesn’t know yet if you’ll be safe. But the reality is we never know if we’ll be “safe” truly so you have to round up your brain to get things done and not let your emotional state rule you.