Does anyone get anxious in large crowds?

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It's not that I get anxious is crowds - I get more irritated in crowds. When I'm looking for something in a shop, I feel very angry if people come near me and look for things in the same section as me. I hate it when, for example, I'm looking at the card section in a supermarket, and someone comes along and stands just a fraction away from me, and reaches for something right near my face. I feel like jumping away. I even feel like yelling, ''f**k off!'' to them - which I would NEVER do because then I will become the laughing stock of the whole town. That'd just make everything a whole lot worse for me.

But I'm just scared that a day's going to come where I'm going to involuntary yell something unpleasent to someone at random in public, without stopping to think first. What if as life goes on for me I might start loosing the part of my brain what controls my actions? Then I will just lash out at people without stopping to think. Then I might end up in a mental hospital, in white coats......OK, now I'm in such a panic of that thought that I've almost thrown up.

Better get in touch with the Social Services before this happens - I fuckng hate mental hospitals. They freak me out!

Hmm...I have tried that, but I never know where to put my MP3 player. If I put it in my pocket the wire keeps swinging about as I walk, and I hate things swinging rhythmatically when I'm walking along. And anyway, I think if I'm not listening carefully to what's going on around me, I always seem to bump into things and people, and I cross roads at awkward times because I'm not listening properly with music on. So I've stopped listening to my music now when walking along.

Last edited by Joe90 on 20 Aug 2010, 10:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Large crowds was a problem in my last of high schools. It was so overpopulated, that during lunch and inbetween classes, the halls were so full, that if you speed walk like I do, you just end up having to go through a bunch of crowds, making a lot of physical contact. That with the sounds, lights, smells, and everything else in a high school made my senses shut down. I had no energy to get anxious, but when I am in these crowds for extended periods of time, I would get anxious because it felt like I couldn't get out. Further more, I could not participate in any school-patriotic assemblies held in the gym, because the first time I went, I got sick for the rest of the week. It was okay in our theatre hall, though, still pretty bad.

Because of shutting down and getting overwhelmed easily, I found that my anxiety was because I had no escape and did not want to suffer through this shutting down as often. Now imagine a couple of 9 hour shifts as a cashier on top of all this and yeah... I was in pain all the time, I was cranky, I made a lot of mistakes, I couldn't think.

I'm not a fan of large crowds, partially because I'm claustrophobic and because they're always so loud. High school hallways were amongst the worst of this since the hallways were very narrow.

I don't remember how I was when I was a kid, but for the past several years, it's been like this. I'm scared of someone starting up a conversation with me because I don't know if I would be able to keep the small talk working, I usually fail at it.

Occasionally I'll have my hands in front of me, close to each other, sometimes held together as if I'm praying or something. Hard to explain, but I end up doing something like this subconsciously while I'm in a large crowd and I suppose it helps me cope or something.

I feel very anxious, to the point of tears, sometimes. I guess that shows, that I'm human. That's why I'd rather stick around town, instead of going on clubhouse outings, to all the different festivals.

Large crowds + Monique = stimming

I can take crowds to a point, and that point is ambiguous. It just comes to a point where I need to leave.

Through my life I've had a love-hate relationship with crowds. They'd make me anxious and stressed as hell, but at the same time appear alluring and intriguing.

I've found out the intriguing thing about crowds is you can hide in them. There's a sense of annonymity. I can do what I want, nobody is going to notice because I'm in a crowd. I don't have to worry about people judging me, because there's no reason I'd get any more attention than anyone else there.

And if they are talking about me I must be important to have captured the conversation of a large number of people. If a few people are talking about me they're just people-watching.

Crowds are only unenjoyable to me if I try to pay attention to what it's doing. If I take an attitude of detached apathy towards the behavior of the crowd it feels good. I might notice someone I think is interesting and start talking but I don't stress over it.

I've made a rule for myself. Unless it is clear that someone is speaking to me I ignore the sound. Otherwise I'd be stuck saying "sorry did you say something?" the whole time.

I get very anxious. I'm going to encounter a large crowd later this morning unfortunately, a very large crowd and I'm going to be RIGHT in the middle of it. I'm trying to convince myself that it's going to be okay and up until I get in there, it seems like it will be. And then that sense of security all evaporates.

I hate crowds when I'm alone walking into them and people are looking at me. I make myself look as ugly as possible so people won't stare at me. But when I'm with a friend I find crowds very stimulating and not scary at all. I also find focusing on what other people are wearing and trying to guess what brands, their age, their job, their shoes are really helps to lessen my anxiety. Someone told me to try to picture people naked but I haven't tried that yet.

I hate crowds so much. If I am anywhere where there are too many people I get very anxious and start to feel under attack. Also I notice then if I am walking down the street and someone walks near me I get very nervous and angry and so I stop and let them pass before walking again.

I have the mind reading issue too. I somehow think everyone knows what I am thinking and they know I am angry or nervous. I just want to get away from them as soon as I can.

The most crowded place I ever went was a U2 concert. There were 80,000 people and it all became very disorientating. I was much younger then though.

I get the feeling that people can hear my thoughts too, but my social worker attributes that to my mental health problems

I hate hate hate crowds. I get extremely panicky in them. So much so that I leave home at 6.30am to go to uni so that I can miss the rush hour on the underground. The sensory overload is.....overwhelming

Within limits, I rather like crowds.

If I'm walking down the street and a single person is walking toward me, I feel that I am expected to interact with that person.

Same street, same person walking toward me - but they are with 3 friends. I am more nervous because, while the likelihood of interaction is lower, if it occurs it's more likely to go badly.

Now put us on a crowded city street, or in a busy mall, or at an amusement park - each of us is part of two endless streams of people flowing in opposite directions. At this point, the chance of individual interaction is virtually nil, and I no longer perceive the other people as people: they are simply obstacles with which to avoid colliding. Eye contact no longer bothers me - when it occurs, it's so brief and impersonal that it simply doesn't matter. All any of us is trying to do is simply navigate through the area to our chosen destination. This depersonalization takes place at the grocery store, as well. I have walked past my brother several times in one shopping visit, only realizing it when we ended up next to each other at the checkout and he spoke to me.

This helps make things like Christmas shopping much more bearable. I know before I go that there will be noise and lots of distracting decorations, etc, - but I am able to ignore the people with little effort, and concentrate on ignoring the other stuff.

It does, however, make cocktail parties and the like difficult. You're supposed to be there to interact with the other people, and it's kinda hard to do so if you're mentally categorizing them as "objects" rather than "people."