Wake up with a jolt, remembering a (in reality) very minor interaction from the day (or week) before and obsess over how that interaction played out. Start your day with a racing heart and that weird feeling in your gut that you made a fool of yourself.
Start getting yourself ready for the day. Jolted out of your routine by the little girly scream crying to get your attention to get her out of bed (since she still won’t attempt to get out of bed on her own). Hurriedly finish what you’re doing to get her out of bed before she wakes her brother or goes into full on meltdown. Lose track of your thoughts, brain goes a little haywire trying to regain train of thought and not get overwhelmed by the kiddo’s cries.
Get ready for the day. If it’s a workday, take stock of any meetings on the calendar. Start analyzing in your head any potential conversations that could occur, think of all the possible ways you could make a fool of yourself, embarrass yourself. If you have to go out in public – meeting a friend, going grocery shopping, going to a doctor’s appointment – again, analyze in your head all the possible things that could happen while you’re out in public and how they could go wrong, how you’ll react, how you’ll try not to be an idiot.
Make it to the end of the workday, to evening. Debate FaceTiming with family with the kiddos, stress about if you’ll be interrupting something important if you try to call, or if you’re brain will function coherently enough to be able to have a full conversation without stuttering or just sitting there quietly while the kiddos are goofy and nuts.
Get the kids to bed. Decompress on the couch, rewatching a show you’ve seen a million times already, because you’re too wiped and anxious to try to watch something new. Sit awkwardly with your hubby, sometimes having wonderful conversation, other times wondering if you have anything valuable to say at all. Go to bed yourself, lay awake for an hour or so replaying the day and everything you wish you had done better. Fall asleep, wake up, and repeat the next day.
It’s not just me, right? I didn’t think so.
I’ve come to accept my social awkwardness as part of who I am. And I am continually working on ways to work through my anxiety around my socially awkward personality and be comfortable with my interactions with family, friends, and being out in public, in general.
It’s not an easy process. I continue to overthink A LOT of things. But I’m making progress. I’ve found ways to cope with and tackle my social anxiety, and I continue to work on ways to get out of my own head.
I’d love to hear how you embrace and/or work on your social awkwardness. Leave a comment to share your tricks, or shoot me a message if you’d rather not share publicly (because I know how that can go in our minds later on 😊).
How to Know When you've Buried Your True Identity
Get the four steps to recognize when you’ve morphed to fit the expectations of others.
