To wonder what every happened to just being shy?

[drinkingchanelno5]

I notice this everywhere now. Everyone has 'social anxiety' that seems to prevent them living a normal life. Being shy from time to time is normal and happens to everyone at some point! Seems to me that labelling yourself as 'anxious' rather than just shy is somehow reinforcing the issue, and gives you a reason to not try to overcome it because it gives it a medicalised label. They are called social 'skills' for a reason - they are skills that can be learned and need to be practised.

And yes I know some people have genuine anxiety issues, but people seem to reach for the social anxiety label automatically and it really grinds my gears! Or AIBU?

Ok, I'll stand corrected.

run I don't wonder. It's not my business. If someone says they have a specific condition, I am courteous enough to accept them at their word.

Your comments about PND ... well, frankly, it reminded me of people who told a friend of mine that she didn't and just dismissed it out of hand, when actually she did, and it took her ages to finally ask for help because she felt so upset and inadequate because people were tellling her she was fine and how she felt was normal.

Yes, some people are just shy. Yes, some people will use terms like 'social anxiety' when that isn't really what they are suffering from.

That doesn't, however, mean that social anxiety isn't a real condition that exists and is very distressing for people who have to deal with it. It is a different thing to shyness.

I agree that some people are quick to put medical labels on all sorts of behaviours/personalities, and some people are quick to diagnose themselves or their children with conditions they don't actually have. But please don't think that because that sometimes happens, those conditions don't exist or aren't serious.

Yes, some people will use terms like 'social anxiety' when that isn't really what they are suffering from.

I guess my question would be this... who are you to say that it isn't really what they are suffering from?

If you mean that some people are quick to self diagnose or label their child as having a condition that they don't actually have then YANBU. I also hate when people label their as being a certain personality type or having likes or dislikes because they do and it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. SIL says her DD hates crowds - no she hates crowds, her DD hates certain foods - no SIL dislikes xyz and DN munches away on them away from home. In fact the tendency to label every behaviour or personality type like this means that those who actually do suffer from a diagnosed MH problem are taken less seriously.

gingerandholly "Your comments about PND ... well, frankly, it reminded me of people who told a friend of mine that she didn't and just dismissed it out of hand"

It may have remind you of that, but what I was saying was actually the opposite. Presumably it isn't offensive to anyone for me to say that although it was suggested at the time I had PND, I didn't, I was just tired and exhausted and that is not the same thing? That is so far removed from the scenario you described above.

Some truly staggering levels of ignorance and prejudice being displayed on this thread.

I'm trained to work with people like you

Seriously? Where did you do your training because, either it went over your head or they did a really shit job.

And health anxiety. That's just hypochondria

You haven't the faintest clue what you're talking about. So stop dismissing the suffering of others human beings based on nothing but assumptions and blind prejudice and either educate yourself about Mental Health or stop talking about things that you don't understand.

I didn't say it was offensive. I said it reminded me of the situation I described. You feel it's far removed, I do not. We'll have to agree to disagree. But then I feel far too many women who actually do have PND do not get the appropriate support for it due to people downplaying symptoms and dismissing it as "that's normal after having a baby."

Social anxiety is totally different from been shy. Shy People may be more introverted, social anxiety sufferers will obsess during and after interaction about how they came across, if they offended anyone.

Do the people objecting agree that there is a trend of pathologising 'normal' behaviours? Or is it the dismissal of actual disorders as 'normal' that is the issue.

I think that we massively underestimated particularly MH issues in the past. And people suffered. I think social anxiety isn't the same as shyness (well obviously). But I still think there is an issue with self-diagnosis and pathologising.

I know this makes people angry because people feel their very serious conditions are being minimized. And I agree. But they are also sidelined and minimized by people attention seeking.

I speak as someone with a child with ADHD (or 'naughty', just tell her she can't...). So I know what it's like.

Just an FYI my ' social anxiety ' and ' anxiety' mean:
that often whenever I leave the house for long periods or somewhere I find stressful my pulse races for hours afterwards as I'm worked up

I often get panicked randomly, when I'm out travelling ill get random pains through my body

be really worried about anything.
I always second guess my interactions with people, did I say the right thing, I didn't get a text back do they really want to talk to me etc

I have just suffered 2-3 weeks of constipation which only relieved after I got checked by a doctor an hour later I was regular again.
Even when I'm outside sitting down I can feel breathless or get random pains or be worried.
Loads of headaches
Pulse checking over 200 times when it was at its worst
Literal fear sometimes at the thought of going out
I have t had a decent Christmas in years as I've had psycho semantic illnesses this year is a return for worrying about cancer and weird fingers, this will be he second time, I've rang 111 2am Christmas Day thinking I had a bloodclot
Whilst wanting to talk to people always being too nervous not just shy as I was before but I've done ridiculous things to not have to interact.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but it pisses me off that people just assume anxiety is made up, and in another turn of events all through this I was thinking I have to tell them to stop being a cunt but then I was worried how it'll come across as I am this, it's just a constant state of worrying.

Is there actual evidence of people "pathologising" with respect to mental health conditions? I'm skeptical. Seems like a modern way of discouraging talking about MH issues.

I heard a radio programme on a large piece of research suggesting that levels of MH conditions are high across the world: IIRC one of the hypotheses of the researchers was that there was NOT "over reporting" in affluent countries.

I'm quiet but not shy. I do however have social anxiety.

It comes and goes, and I hate it. It makes me feel utterly powerless and useless. Even doing things I usually enjoy becomes an uphill struggle that leaves me exhausted.

Anxiety can be seen by those who don't have it as a "mild" mental illness, but as someone who experiences anxiety and severe depression I personally find the anxiety harder to deal with.

Social anxiety is not the same as social uncomfortableness or being a little bit awkward in social situations.

It depends what you mean by 'reporting'. I meet a lot of youth who don't see medical professionals about their MH, and other, concerns. They just assume they have what they have heard about.

And since psychiatrists have a hard time unpicking and diagnosing people's disorders, it doesn't take a genius to know that a 15 yo probably can't.

An example is all the people who are 'gluten intolerant'. I have diagnosed IBS which gets worse if I eat a lot of bread. But they have to rule out worse things when you go in with the symptoms. My visual disturbances turned out to be migraines but could have been a brain tumour or a detached retina. The symptoms are there, the MH concerns are real, the 'diagnosis' may well be wrong.

health anxiety - that's just hypochondria

Yes, that's exactly what it is. Hypochondria isn't 'making stuff up for attention'. Hypochondria is an overwhelming terror and obsession with ill health. It's being so terrified that the sufferer feels physically ill from the strain.

Hypochondria is used as an insult but that's along the same lines as all that 'oh, I'm a bit OCD, I like to fold my towels a certain way'.

Health anxiety is crippling. I was a 'normal' person, bit of a worrier in general but nothing that indicated a mental health problem. Ten days or so after the birth of my first child, within a matter of hours, I suddenly felt an overwhelming terror descend on me. I became convinced my husband was dead. I started ringing him multiple times a day at work to check he was alive. I woke him in the night to check he was alive. Then my terror moved to my baby. I was scared to buy new clothes for her in the next size up because I was convinced she would die before she grew into them, and it would be my fault for buying the clothes. Then my attention turned to myself. I had heart palpitations, I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I used to shower and dress in the dark because I was scared to see my body because the slightest bump or mark on my skin would throw me into a terror that I had some fatal illness, probably cancer. I would sit rocking back and forth trying to take deep breaths for hours at a time because I couldn't focus on anything else. I lived my life like this for three horrific years before I broke down in tears with the GP and explained how I felt. He explained that health anxiety was a real condition and that I didn't have to exist in this state of detachment from reality.

Hypochondria/health anxiety is not moaning all the time about having a cold coming on or a bit of a sore head. It is a crippling, life changing condition that can strike out of the blue. People who suffer from it are usually not the people who go to the doctor all the time, or moan about their health, because we tend to be terrified of the doctor and also to be so anxious that the last thing we'd want to do is talk about our health.

I am aware of everything you've said and I do not dispute it. I agree that calling someone a hypochondriac is often used as an insult. My point was not that health anxiety doesn't exist. Neither was it that a hypochondriac is someone who constantly whinges about and exaggerates low level illness.

My point was that apart from a few subtle differences in what constitutes hypochondria and what constitutes the more recent sweeping phenomenon of health anxiety (which was virtually unheard of as a thing until about ten years ago, because it was generalised as hypochondria) they are basically in almost all ways, the same thing.

No-one ever says (unless they are being ironic and self deprecating) I am a hypochondriac. But it seems people are much more comfortable with admitting they have health anxiety. I think somehow hypochondria has acquired a slightly comical/sneery stigma so it's been rebranded as health anxiety because it attracts more empathy. That was my point.

Yes, that was my point too. They are the same thing. It's just that the modern name for it is health anxiety. The same way as manic depression is now called bipolar disease. When I was a child people with cerebral palsy were called spastics. The names change over time, but it's just a name.

As in, the old names came to be used as insults, so presumably that is why new names evolved?

Social anxiety is not the same as being shy. My dd is the least shy person I know, brilliant around people, works in a customer-facing job, but still suffers from crippling social anxiety.

I otoh was a shy child but did not suffer from social anxiety.

I read th op as meaning that there are some people (not all) who apply the term social anxiety when it isn't an accurate description of their mental health and that it therefore trivialises the reality of the experience of social anxiety.
I can see that other people read the op's post differently. I'm not saying their interpretation is wrong. I can see how this makes it seem that mh issues are able to be dismissed as just a faddy label.
Having had severe anxiety I can absolutely see the difference between the effects of that and when I'm 'just' being shy.

I do have a close friend who says often and openly that he's socially anxious - I have really conflicted feelings (which makes me even more conflicted, as who am I to judge!), on the one hand he exhibits no symptoms and this makes me irritated because I do feel like he's applying a label to perfectly ordinary feelings of awkwardness in new situations. On the other hand I think to myself ODFOD - symptoms are often hidden DUE to the condition stop being such a cow. I keep my mouth shut and offer support - regardless he feels badly enough to apply a label, that implies he needs support.

YANBU OP. Everything seems to need labelling these days. Doesn't seem to be any 'naughty' or 'willful' or 'awkward' or 'impatient' children anymore. They must have something that needs labelling. ADHD is MASSIVELY over-diagnosed IMO. I'm sure it exists but is rare.

I think a lot of people are being unfair on the OP. I don´t see she or anyone has declared that social anxiety doesn´t exist at all.

OP, YANBU in relation some self diagnosis or the tendency medicalise behaviour in the normal range

Totally agree op the amount of teenagers diagnosing themselves as having social anxiety near here is excessive to say the least, definitely a culture of having a medical label for anything and everything these days as pp said

I have a son who is shy - as was I as a child. I have learnt the social skills necessary to deal with shyness and he is starting to. We've encouraged him to join clubs and go to parties and now he's much more outgoing.

I have a Dh who suffers from anxiety. You might not know it to look at him - he often presents as the life and soul of the party - but there have been times where he has literally been unable to leave the house and has been awake for days obsessing over a social or work situation. For example, he makes a minor mistake at work but the anxiety takes hold and before you know it he's convinced himself that he'll lose his job, I'll leave him and take the kids, the house will be repossessed etc.

So, OP, YABU in one sense - the 2 things are very different and you can't just teach yourself a few social skills to deal with genuine anxiety.

I do think you might have a point about the fact that real MH issues can be trivialised by people using those labels inaccurately.

From another angle, it really annoys me that those of us who are quieter or reserved are made to feel this is some sort of undesirable trait or affliction.

Nowadays the only personality default to aspire to seems to be to crave centre stage and anyone that doesn't is labelled as shy in a pitying way

There's nothing wrong with being more reserved. Of course if social anxiety is making someone uncomfortable or preventing them from doing things they want to then that's entirely different. But, especially at school, being naturally quieter is invariably criticised and it doesn't half get on my wick.