Social anxiety, performance anxiety, or both?

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DaughterOfAule
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21 May 2019, 10:00 am

Due to struggling to know what I am feeling I didn't realize I had anxiety until my doctor told me I did. I didn't even know the panic attacks I was having were panic attacks. After I told my mom what the doctor had said she responded with, "that makes sense, you were always an anxious child". Since then I've been trying to figure out how my brain functions a bit more in order to find ways to make things easier for myself.

My sister has social anxiety and my doctor said I have performance anxiety (panic attacks were happening at least once a day while I was working). My sister and I have spoken about the way our anxieties differ. A very stripped down version of the difference is that she is worried that she will embarrass herself and I am more worried that I will embarrass the people I am with and/or be misunderstood. I have a hard time with communication and finding the right words to express myself, and often finding words at all. If I am by myself I don't care to not look directly at someone, stumble over my words, and come across as "weird" because that is how I am and am fine with it on my part. It only really causes anxiety when I am in a social situation with people I care about or people who are counting on me to represent them (ie: that fear of embarrassing someone else). Talking to people on my own does cause a bit of anxiety because I do worry I won't make sense and be misunderstood and because I don't like change and the unexpected, but not due to being afraid of being judged. My sister doesn't like change and the unexpected either but to a lesser degree.

People would say my anxiety regarding socializing would mean I have social anxiety too, but I was thinking about it last night and I think because it stems from not wanting to embarrass others or be misunderstood it still sounds like it'd fit with performance anxiety  because I feel like I am acting in those situations in order to not embarrass others and be misunderstood. Or would it be social anxiety due to performance anxiety?

I know the important part is that I am starting to better understand what makes my brain do what it does, but I'm curious what others think about this.


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Exuvian
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23 May 2019, 9:08 pm

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the term social anxiety is just specifying that the performance anxiety is taking place in a social situation. "Performance" is the key word that separates this form of anxiety (social or not) from another form of anxiety like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).



IstominFan
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25 May 2019, 9:42 am

I would say performance anxiety is the more pressing issue for me. When I am giving a speech, I don't like giving a speech that sounds as though it hasn't been well thought out.