Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder is different from social anxiety, but only by its magnitude. Any person may suffer from social anxiety from one or more situations – but an extreme case can cause a person to shun all forms of social interactions altogether. There have been many documented cases wherein social anxiety becomes so excessive that the person with this condition finds it difficult to function normally in most social setups.

So What is Social Anxiety in The First Place?

To simplify matters, social anxiety is a broad term that has come to mean any form of apprehension, emotional discomfort or even fear that a person has in social situations. This can be triggered by the simple thought of being “judged” by the people around them. Others can be triggered by memories of something untoward happening in a particular situation. A good example of this would be: believing firmly that some accident will happen to the person during a wedding.

What is Social Anxiety Disorder Then?

Social anxiety disorder is more popularly known as social phobia and usually defined as a mental health disorder that makes the person suffer from various symptoms of anxiety attack when presented with a gathering of people. However, for people with this kind of phobia, just the mere thought of a gathering of people can send that individual into waves of disquiet already. Many people with social phobia will usually take great pains to avoid contact with other outside world in the first place. This is, by far, the best indicative difference between social anxiety and social phobia.

Some signs that the person has social phobia may include:

• That person avoiding all contact from the outside world by doing most (if not all) shopping online or through the favor of another person
  
• Going out only when he or she knows there are fewer chances of meeting others; and / or 
  
• Never going out at all, never accepting invitations to go anywhere, and never happy with visitors in his or her home.

As such, there are two classifications of social phobia: specific and generalized disorder.

• Specific disorder pertains to only one kind of “event” that triggers the symptoms of social phobia. Depending upon the person himself / herself, some people show great unease during funerals, or weddings, or even something as common as a standing line at a bus stop or a department store check out counter. People with specific social phobia disorder will usually avoid such situations even if it means severing family or friendship ties (to avoid attending the event) or high-tailing it out of there without any logical or believable explanation.
  
  
• Generalized disorder pertains to the type of social anxiety disorder wherein any group of people, (may these be strangers or known to the person, numbering more than 2, in any social setup) can trigger deep, chronic and persistent fear. Often, the thought of “making a fool of themselves” or being scrutinized down to the last fault by the people surrounding them, can cause the person to become unreasonable, prone to excessive sweating, or even withdrawing into long lengths of silences. In other cases, nausea is even common and expected.

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