Even simple conversations with strangers in the grocery store leave me alternately unable to speak or unable to stop speaking about something completely inappropriate to talk to strangers in the grocery store about. For a long time I beat myself up because I thought it was something I could control if I were strong enough, but in my twenties I began having full-scale panic attacks and finally saw a doctor, who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder.
It’s been my experience that people always assume that generalized anxiety disorder is preferable to social anxiety disorder, because it sounds more vague and unthreatening, but those people are totally wrong. For me, having generalized anxiety disorder is basically like having all of the other anxiety disorders smooshed into one. Even the ones that aren’t recognized by modern science. Things like birds-will-probably-smother-me-in-my-sleep anxiety disorder and I-keep-crackers-in-my-pocket-in-case-I-get-trapped-in-an-elevator anxiety disorder. Basically I’m just generally anxious about fucking everything. In fact, I suspect that’s how they came up with the name.
My doctor was extremely tactful when she diagnosed me with anxiety disorder. So tactful, actually, that it wasn’t until several visits later that I finally realized that that was what I had. She was blathering on about a patient who sounded to me like a total nutcase. I wasn’t really paying attention to her talking about anxiety disorders because I was too busy wondering whether she’d consider it a step back in my therapy if I hid under the couch while we had our sessions. Then I suddenly realized that the crazy person she was talking about was me. I assume she was hesitant to give my condition a name before then out of fear that I’d be ashamed of having a genuine mental disorder. But in all honesty, I felt relieved. Now instead of being “weird,” my inability to carry on an appropriate conversation was suddenly labeled a “painfully devastating and incurable medical disability that torments both the victim and those around her.” By me, that is. My doctor, on the other hand, refers to it as a “minor disorder easily treated with medication.” I suspect, however, that if she were ever forced to have a conversation with me at a dinner party she would agree that my definition is far more accurate than hers.
During dinner parties or social events I usually say hello to the hostess and then hide in the bathroom until the party’s over. It’s usually best for everyone involved. I used to read books about people who were naturally good conversationalists, and I’d wonder why I couldn’t just be innately confident and charming while relating humorous anecdotes about my time spent with Jacques Cousteau. Frankly, I suspected that even if I had ever met Jacques Cousteau, I would still be a bad conversationalist. Most party conversations start with me safely nodding along to whatever dull bit of nonsense someone is talking about, and then a few minutes later I panic because the same person asks me what I think about whatever I wasn’t paying attention to, and I hear myself blurting out the story of the time I accidentally swallowed a needle. Then I explain how it probably wasn’t actually a needle, but that I’d thought it was at the time, and then the silence gets louder and louder and I can’t stop talking about how terrible it is to not know whether you’ve swallowed a needle or not. And that’s when I notice that the room has gone completely silent except for the now-slightly-hysterical sound of me trying to find an end to a story that doesn’t even fucking have one. Then I just physically force myself to stop talking, and (after several awkwardly painful seconds of silence) someone else will change the subject and I can slink away to hide in the bathroom until it’s time to leave. And this is the best-case scenario.