Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook for Teens (3 page)

•   Speaking to adults
  
•   Starting or joining a conversation
  
•   Taking a test
  
•   Talking to new or unfamiliar people
  
•   Texting
  
•   Using school or public bathrooms
  
•   Walking in the hallways or hanging out by your locker
  
•   Working with a group of teens
  
•   Writing on the whiteboard or chalkboard
  

You probably identified with several of these trigger situations. Does that mean you are socially anxious? Not necessarily. It is normal for teens to feel anxious and awkward a lot of the time. Many social problems resolve themselves with time and experience.

The real test is not whether you feel anxious in a situation . . .

. . . but whether you go out of your way to avoid that situation.

You can live with social anxiety by avoiding situations that make you uncomfortable, but if that were working for you, you wouldn’t be reading this book.

Anxiety is a tool that we need for survival—what scientists call an adaptation. We’ve been using the primitive part of our brains, our reptile brains, for thousands of years to protect us from threats as varied as a charging wild boar to crossing a busy intersection.

We need anxiety in the same way a house needs a smoke detector: to alert us to danger. But if you are a socially anxious teen, your personal smoke detector is going off every time someone fries an egg or makes a piece of toast.

So why is
your
smoke detector so hypersensitive while other people’s aren’t? There are three causes of social anxiety. You might have one or you might have all three, but as you’ll see, none of them are your fault.

You didn’t come up with this trait all by yourself. If you shake your family tree, you will likely find an uncle or a great-grandmother or even one of your parents who shows anxious traits similar to yours. They may not have had full-fledged social anxiety, but they were “dialed up” in a way you might recognize. Scientists haven’t discovered a specific social anxiety gene yet, but just like blue eyes or curly hair, anxiety is passed down through generations.*

List any of your relatives who you know or suspect have anxiety in social situations.

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* In addition to shyness, there are a variety of other anxiety problems you or your relatives may have experienced. Appendix D at the end of the book lists these common anxieties.

Do your parents rarely socialize? Are they preoccupied with making good impressions? If your parents are overly cautious or shy themselves, their modeling could very well have contributed to your social anxiety.

Describe any ways that your parents model anxiety and avoidance.

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Almost everyone has experienced forgetting their lines in a school presentation or play. For most people, the experience is a memory to chuckle over, but for the socially anxious it may have been a traumatic disaster. They are so worried about a repeat performance that being called upon in class or doing an oral presentation is genuinely terrifying.

Your own personal traumatic event could have been giving the wrong answer in class, finding out you weren’t invited to a party when everyone else was, a rumor that you liked a classmate you really didn’t, or a mean teacher who shamed you in front of the class.

What upsetting events stand out in your memory?

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Unfortunately we can’t undo the past, so your upsetting events, your parental models, and your genes are yours forever. The good news is that whatever the underlying cause of your shyness, the solution is the same. You can harness your anxieties—tweak your smoke detector—so that they work for you when you need them and stay out of the way when you don’t.