Thoughts
Part of my hesitation to seek therapy immediately is that showing up to a first meeting with a therapist isn't going to magically fix
anything.
Part of my hesitation is that my social anxiety also applies to meeting with a therapist.
I get uncomfortable or frustrated easily, and it's difficult to express that in a social situation; complaining or "whining" is not normally well received.
I probably have undiagnosed asperger's (sorry liberals). Or something that makes me inherently less comfortable in social settings.
May editing continuously with thoughts.
I get really strong second hard embarrassment sometimes. Like sometimes someone will say something or explain something in a group of people, and everyone else will kind of smile and nod, but I'll be tempted to pinch the bridge of my nose and shake my head or laugh at them. And I have to kind of fight to stay respectful.
It's hard for me to figure out if me not liking people is a cause of the anxiety or a symptom of it. And obviously it seems like it can't be a cause because I still have social anxiety when I'm going to interact with the 5% of people that I like interacting with. But at times I feel contempt, a strong dislike, for almost everyone and that can't be unrelated.
It's like my emotions are wrong. I shouldn't be feeling contempt or disgust or anxiety or terror, I don't want to be.
There's a common autistic experience which is that a "texture is wrong." And I've never had that experience with textures, really. (I'll tangent in a second.) But that's kind of it feels to talk to people sometimes. It just feels wrong. But, and this is important for me to remember, my social anxiety tells me that that is the case all the time, when it's not. It's actually a small percentage of the time that I feel viscerally uncomfortable.
(Texture tangent: Okay I looked it up, and apparently not like carbonated drinks is an example of a sensation that autistic people don't like. Which is funny. I've never met anyone who shares my intense dislike for that feeling. So I guess this is confirmation I'm on the autistic spectrum. But I've never really felt that way about clothing. Wool is itchy and so I don't like wearing it, but I will. Similarly with food, I wasn't a picky eater as a kid. There are some normal foods that disgust me, but it doesn't match with how I've heard other autistic people describe it. Maybe it's an autism vs Asperger's thing.)
Nothing I've really seen online matches with my experience. The autism stuff is all focused around behaving inappropriately in social situations. And while it doesn't come naturally to me, I don't need help actually navigating the social situation. The social anxiety descriptions seem to be based around a feeling of embarrassment. This is a little harder to compare because I'm not embarrassed in normal ways. I'm not very concerned about wearing the wrong thing, for example. But I honestly don't feel like it's a fear of embarrassment for me at all. It's more like a fear of pain or of that second hand embarrassment mentioned earlier.
I can't ask for help because if I ask for help and no one comes, then I'm really screwed.