Social Anxiety ruining my life

[MisUnderstood1]

I've been looking for a job for the past year and have lost count to how many I've applied to. On Wednesday I applied for a few jobs and one of them emailed me Wednesday night asking me to come for an interview today and my preferred time. I'm yet to reply the email. It's a writing position at a startup - a very small company (less than 10 people) and the pay is about minimum wage. This should be good for a shy and introverted person like me but I found out through their social media pages that working there requires being extroverted and bubbly, so I've been terrified of going. I'm terrified about not fitting in, not being liked, being the subject of gossip, being laughed at, all of which I've experienced before. I just want a job where I don't have to interact much with people.

I got up this morning feeling uneasy. I wasn't really sleeping but had spent much of the night thinking about the interview and how much my (undiagosed) social anxiety has practically ruined my life. Because of it: I changed my Nursing major (my real passion) and ended up with a useless degree, I didn't go to my brother's wedding and five years later we're still not talking/he's not talking to me, have no social life/don't date and lastly, I'm jobless. I'm more depressed about being jobless, but it's not like I've gotten a ton of interviews. Of all the jobs I applied to last year, only one (a call centre) emailed me for an interview around this time and I didn't go for it for this same reason. The funny this is even though I'm struggling with SA, I can summon the courage to walk in and submit my resume, which I've done a few times. I prefer that and meeting a supervisor/manager and getting it over with than anticipating and dreading an interview. Idk if I'm like this because I was bullied growing up in this country. In my native country, even though I was shy and introverted, I was nonethess very functional and participated in school plays and social activities. But moving here at 11 and being bullied throughout middle and high school changed everything. After middle school I though going to a catholic high school would stop the bullying but the girls came to the same school. Their leader, a boy who did everything he could to make my life miserable, went to another high school, but that did not stop them. At 32, I'm still struggling with the effects. I sometimes wish we hadn't come here. I was doing just fine as a kid back home.

Last year in October I applied for some teaching jobs in China. I got an email to do a 6am skype interview for the first one. I woke up early and got myself ready. My hair was nicely and neatly styled and I wore a white collared shirt to look professional. As soon as I got on camera the Chinese recruiter started laughing. I saw her give the camera to the girl beside her (also Chinese) and she too started laughing and said saying something in mandarin, which I don't speak. I had to turn off the camera and cried. Idk why they were laughing. I look young for my age and I'm not sure if this is why, or perhaps they weren't expecting a nonwhite person. I wanted to teach in China to challenge myself with my SA, thought I could do it because I would be teaching children under 6 and it wouldn't be as scary as teaching older kids, love children, and finding a job here was proving difficult. I haven't applied to another teaching job and with the current situation in China I don't think I will be. Fast forward to this week, I finally got an interview and I'm blowing it up. I still want to reply the email and ask if I can do the interview next week but I'm really scared. I don't know what to do with myself anymore

[preraph]

Why I don't go get manicures.  I always feel like they're laughing at me.  I doubt that they are, though. If so, not nice.  

 

Anyway, you clearly need to get yourself into therapy and do what it takes to get past this social anxiety.  I would say you also need to go back to where you once felt comfortable.  You're grown now and that gets rid of most of the bullies.  You may encounter one in the workplace.  We all do.  But there are remedies for that sometimes.  I would say being a teacher is just asking for it, though.  Kids are usually mean and talking behind teachers' backs, and the whole atmosphere is juvenile, so not sure that is the right path for you.  I would think nursing would have been the better choice, maybe, though doctors can be quite terse and bossy and arrogant.  

 

If you want a job without public interaction, apply somewhere like a bank and tell them you are interested in "back-office" jobs.  You know you are not right for this job because they are looking for an extrovert, so just tell them that.  Ask if they have any positions that are more "back-office."  It's minimum wage, so with your education, I'd think you should be able to do better than that anyway.  You might apply for some municipal or city or county jobs.   I mean, there's all kinds of jobs out there.  

[MisUnderstood1]

On 2/22/2020 at 12:51 PM, preraph said:

Why I don't go get manicures.  I always feel like they're laughing at me.  I doubt that they are, though. If so, not nice.  

 

Anyway, you clearly need to get yourself into therapy and do what it takes to get past this social anxiety.  I would say you also need to go back to where you once felt comfortable.  You're grown now and that gets rid of most of the bullies.  You may encounter one in the workplace.  We all do.  But there are remedies for that sometimes.  I would say being a teacher is just asking for it, though.  Kids are usually mean and talking behind teachers' backs, and the whole atmosphere is juvenile, so not sure that is the right path for you.  I would think nursing would have been the better choice, maybe, though doctors can be quite terse and bossy and arrogant.  

 

If you want a job without public interaction, apply somewhere like a bank and tell them you are interested in "back-office" jobs.  You know you are not right for this job because they are looking for an extrovert, so just tell them that.  Ask if they have any positions that are more "back-office."  It's minimum wage, so with your education, I'd think you should be able to do better than that anyway.  You might apply for some municipal or city or county jobs.   I mean, there's all kinds of jobs out there.  

I replied the email this morning and said I can come for the interview tomorrow morning. I thought I would just summon the courage to go. I'm yet to get a reply and it's the end of the day now, so I'm guessing whoever emailed me isn't going to respond.

I actually have two degrees. I've applied to higher jobs before and wasn't contacted.

I did apply to one bank job I thought I could get sometime last year but wasn't contacted. I don't qualify for most Bank, Municipal or City jobs because they typically require specific degrees (typically not arts/humanities degrees like I have) and experience, which I don't have.

Edited February 24, 2020 by MisUnderstood1

[preraph]

I guess you are going to have to take some job for the experience.  You might need to work one full and one part-time job to make ends meet, but then you will have experience.  Be sure and have someone look over your resume and be sure there isn't something on there that is offputting or can be improved upon.  

[charlie007]

Just my thoughts:

Somewhere, some person (or multiple people) in your past probably put some sort of terrible programming in your mind that

messed up your vision of yourself and what you are capable of. When we worry about *Not fitting in, *not being liked, *being the subject of

gossip, *being laughed at... and we have those thoughts all the time? It's almost as if we attract those things into our lives automatically

because it's what we believe will happen or our programmed beliefs of who we are as  a person. It's where everything 'clicks' for us, right or

wrong, so we almost in a strange way seek that behavior toward us (even though we don't want it, nor do we like it) because it's what we

think we either deserve or what is just going to happen because it "always happens" (and if someone DIDN'T gossip about me, that would be so weird)

 

I'm not saying that is the case with you, but I am certain in my heart that a lot of human beings do that to ourselves. You need to get rid of

those assumptions that people are going to automatically talk crap about you, or you're not going to be liked, or whatever. It's keeping you

from bigger upside and reaching your goals. Forget the past and start believing right now that, someone put that stuff in your head... but it's not

who you really are, you're better than that.

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by charlie007

[Happy Lemming]

I never really cared what my co-workers thought about me or said behind my back.

I'm there to do a job and collect my paycheck, nothing else.  I don't need to go to lunch with them, don't need to go to "Happy Hour" after work with, tell them about my weekend or any other minutiae.  My life outside of work was personal and compartmentalize. No need to mix the two.

I had one job, where I went into work, said "Good Morning" and locked myself in my office and worked on my computer all day.  Unless it was work related, I had nothing to say to my co-workers.

I do remember at one point the owner came into my office as he was concerned about me and the fact that I "kept to myself"  I pulled out last month's cash flow statement and showed him how close the edge his company was and that my constant work on the company cash position, kept him from having to make a capital contribution.  At that point, he said "Oh... OK... I didn't really realize that, maybe we should meet from time to time and we can go over this 'cash flow' stuff" I responded "Sure.. see you next month this time." He left and closed my door and I went back to doing my job.

[MsJayne]

It sounds as though you may have experienced bullying at some time in your life.  Is it possible you can go for some counselling?  I grew up being mercilessly bullied by a sibling and the damage lasted years, I was in my late twenties before I actually started looking other people in the eye and stopped thinking I was going to be ridiculed and belittled at every turn.  It certainly stopped me from pursuing the life I would have had if I'd had my self-esteem and confidence intact, and I seriously urge you to get help now and not let this ruin your whole life.