Social anxiety is

heaving up parts of yourself in public

desperately scrambling for a piece of someone else

you picked up six years ago in your hopeless attempts to "fit in" in middle school,

hoping one of them will do the trick,

hoping ONE of them will get you out of this coffee shop conversation

sooner,

rather than later.

Social anxiety is getting a job at the grocery store and telling the hiring manager

that you LOVE working with people!

....and hyperventilating in the bathroom after a nice old lady

asks you where the cheese is.

Social anxiety is apologizing for existing,

for being there,

for apologizing again,

and again....

Social anxiety is being so afraid everybody's eyes are on you

that you never really look in the mirror.

Social anxiety is being so petrified of somebody being MAD at you

that you can never just be kind to yourself.

Social anxiety is being so afraid of messing EVERYTHING up

that you kind of do.

Social anxiety is being willing to DIE if there was any possible way

your living, the space you were taking up, the way you crossed your legs,

the way you were BREATHING,

could have inconvenienced somebody at the bank.

Social anxiety...

is being well-acquainted with folding

like a metal chair or a little piece of paper.

Except...

you're human, and humans

aren't supposed to fold.

Social anxiety is being so afraid of "killing the conversation"

that you never let yourself live.