Ivan

I'm just tired of how people on Tumblr (and social networking in general) tend to glorify mental illnesses (which is what I got from the first part of that picture). And it's always from people who haven't experienced what it's really like, and instead using the illnesses as an excuse for their own little quirks so they can feel special. When in reality, there's nothing to feel special about. I wish that people like that would see that not just social anxiety, but all mental illnesses, aren't something to strive for; that they won't live a happy life with them. That instead they are an obstacle to climb over; and sometimes people are climbing that hill for the rest of their lives. But it's not something to be ashamed of. I have friends that have social anxiety. You wouldn't be able to tell when you interact with them, because they've been fighting it for a long time. I didn't even know until they told me. I might even have it, but I'll never know until I can move to a more comfortable place than where I am now. When I talk to my friends about it, I don't talk about how glad I am to feel certain ways in certain circumstances. No, I talk about how glad I am that I'm fighting against it, just as my friends do. Of course, people are still able to have their little quirks, but I just wish they'd stop using mental illnesses to explain their quirks so they can 'fit in'.

There is nothing "badass" about social anxiety, even in the comfort of your own home. There is nothing "quirky" or "awesome" about it. Social anxiety is a fear. It's the fear of when you're walking down a hallway and you think all eyes are on you, and each person's thought is something degrading about you. It's the fear of being called on in class even when you know the correct answer because you're scared that if you're wrong everybody will mock you. It's the fear of wanting to say something in a conversation with your friends but you feel it's not good input. It's the crippling fear of going to post an opinion or posting words of comfort to a friend but you feel it's not good enough --that you're not good enough-- so you delete it. It's when all you want to do is go curl up under a blanket at home but sometimes you're not even safe from judging eyes there. It's when you're entering high school and you need to figure out what you want to do but you don't know where to begin so you do whatever you can to please the people around you. It's when you're about to graduate college and you don't even know what the next step is or where to begin so you don't even try. It's when you don't try because you're afraid of failing, and ultimately you're afraid of letting everybody around you down. It's when you have a lot of friends that support you and would do anything for you but you can't even see that and you just feel like a burden to them. It's when you feel like a burden to everybody so you don't even try to interact with people because you're afraid of rejection. It's not when you're a tweeny girl who's going through her "LOL I'M SO RANDOM... WAFFLES!1!11! XDDDD" phase. It's not when you're more expressive online than you are in real life. It's not when you're a bit socially awkward. Social anxiety is suffocating. It hurts. Not just you, but your friends and family as well. There's nothing awesome about it.