This is true of basically everything you struggle with in life, ngl. Exposure therapy is like, a very proven and real thing we HAVE to do to get used to shit we don't particularly like so that our response is more on the normalish side rather than, y'know, panic attacks and extreme shit. most of your fears can be conquered this way. most of the stupid social cues my fellow NDs struggle to pick up on can be learned this way. you will never desensitize yourself if you just avoid everything that makes you uncomfortable. you will never grow and learn by avoiding. i'm sorry to say that yes, you have to get out there and deliberately make yourself uncomfortable sometimes. that is life, babes. but see, the cool thing about CHOOSING to do it is that you can pick for how long and how often. microdose on discomfort if you must. confront your social anxiety for a full five minutes and reward yourself for it. do it again for six minutes. for seven minutes. suddenly ten minutes isn't so hard. next thing you know you can tolerate fifteen minutes. thirty minutes. a whole hour! and it may seem like just being able to tolerate the anxiety for an hour isn't really a big deal or isn't much progress until the day you're suddenly forced into a social situation. then you realize, hey, this kinda sucks but i'm not curled in the fetal position hyperventilating or locked in the bathroom barfing and shaking uncontrollably. i can tolerate this.
and maybe tolerating is all you can muster, and that's fine. that's all you need to be able to function without a breakdown! but sometimes, after your brain has finally realized you don't need to activate survival mode anymore in these situations, you might actually find that you enjoy a bit of socializing. i know, bonkers right? it's almost like we're social animals or something. anyway.
take it from me. i used to be firmly on the "absolutely fucking not" side of social situations. i regularly took F's in school for refusing oral presentations. i avoided parties like the plague. even amongst my own friends, i had a hard time handling more than like five of them together at a time. i was the kid who had a very hard time doing sleepovers at friends houses because the rest of their family was simply too much socializing for me. i passed on leadership opportunities in several jobs because the thought of leading made me physically ill. i was about as reclusive as it came. i simply did not have a social life to any degree. and then i got into a relationship with someone who was... i wouldn't exactly call him an extrovert, but close to one. plus he was almost ten years older than me and that age group (hello, xennials) just have an entirely different way of socializing that i can't really articulate. he had a LOT of friends. his friends were definitely extroverted. and they liked to hang out all the time. on top of that, he had a MASSIVE family, where as mine consisted of just me, my brother, and our mom. i wasn't necessarily forced into socializing with any of them, but i realized i would be missing out on an important part of him if i avoided it like i always had. and so i made an effort. little by little i worked my way up to tolerating these large groups. and he would always leave when i reached my limit, even if he hadn't reached his yet. and then it started being less tolerating and more neutral. and before i knew it, i was having a good time. i was enjoying the times we had group hangouts with the friends. i started looking forward to the next one. i was excited to be invited over for a movie night or to watch basketball. his family was still a bit much during the holidays, but i could sit and chat and not want to crawl out of my skin. and soon it turned into us hosting the hangouts and the gamenights, inviting more and more people that i often wasn't even that familiar with! i went to concerts finally! festivals! cons! i learned to finally accept leadership positions. i learned how to take charge on meetings and presentations, how to speak on behalf of a team, how to reach out and conduct business with complete strangers. and most importantly, through all of this, while i was learning how to face my anxiety of being social, i was also learning how to advocate for myself. i know that's a big thing socially anxious people struggle with. it's so much easier to avoid than to confront. it's easier to allow people to step all over you than dare speak up and bring attention to yourself. it's easier to just go along with something you hate than x, y, or z. but that's only doing harm to yourself, and reinforcing the avoidance cycle.
learning to be social taught me the power of saying no without fear attached to it. it gave me a bunch of friends - some of whom turned into family. it gave me an extended family and all the craziness that comes with it. it opened up job opportunities. it improved my confidence. and all of that came by taking small steps. be being willing to make myself uncomfortable. by being patient with myself.
it isn't a cure by any means. i still have panic attacks brought on by social situations. i still talk myself out of going to things i really want to go to just because People Will Be There. i still avoid. i've probably done a lot of backsliding since my move to cali where I'm entirely alone and without my now-ex-but-still-best-friend as an anchor for social events. but it doesn't control my entire life anymore like it used to. even if i'm struggling a little more right now, i'm still getting out ten times more than i ever would have in the past. the amount of socializing i do now, while somewhat minimal by most standards, would have made 12 year old me utterly terrified and would have sent 18 year old me straight into a panic attack.
so yes. if something like ordering your own drink is that step forward for you, then congratulate yourself. and keep at it. you are doing amazing every single time you choose to step out of your comfort zone. small progress is still progress and it will add up, i promise you. future you is so, so proud of you. future you is cheering you on. future you is so grateful for all your effort. keep challenging yourself and keep growing!
