Gonna throw my experiences out here.
it's not hard to not be shy.
This is an
extremely unhelpful view to people who suffer from shyness and social anxiety.
I've been extremely shy ever since I can remember, but no one would guess it from how far I've come. My shyness and anxiety around others comes from living my very earliest years in an extremely abusive household and later a one where people were usually yelling and arguing with each other. Being a sad little girl who knows she has no voice does very damaging things to your psyche. To compound that, I lived in a not-so-good neighborhood where other kids sometimes mimicked their not-so-good parents. I'll leave it at that.
Around the time I was ten I was diagnosed with depression, we moved, and I lost the friends I did have. My social anxiety worsened to the point where I didn't have the confidence to make any more. I'd call my anxiety by that point "severe" in the sense that crowded rooms usually resulted in panic attacks and vomiting. If you caught me then and just told me "just stop being shy" I probably would have started crying.
I can't write about how I eventually came out of that and how it's still an on going process. That would take a very, very long time. Today I take leadership roles, speak in front of large audiences with great enthusiasm, and have many good friends. I didn't get here on my own, though, I had help and I wouldn't be anywhere without it. I attended an alternative high school with great role models for teachers who genuinely cared about me, a loving family (even if they were stressed out and didn't always understand what I was going through) and slowly some
actual peers I wanted to call friends.
Here's the thing I doubt wizards and the like get though:
you open yourself up for that first. Just a
little bit.
When I was 16 I was very depressed, I felt like I was worthless and going nowhere and I was very distrustful towards my peers. But the door opened for me when I met some teachers whose compassion reached me and I decided that maybe I would try do well in what very little schoolwork I had. It went from there to here, four years later.
Now that I've been established as someone who for most of their life has been shy and socially anxious, I'd like to talk about talking to people and making friends.
It. Takes. Practice.
There are no two ways around this. You do not get good at talking to people by sitting in your room and hating the world. If you're not comfortable talking with your peers, talk to someone older and more mature. That's what I did and what I still prefer doing to be honest, but it's how you build confidence in socialization. Online socialization is great, no doubt about it, I had some friends online during the years I had none in real life. However, I haven't been at socializing regularly in person for really long and those years without did take a toll (I have to practice being as articulate as I want to be on the spot and my body language and tone aren't that animate) Not autistic or anything, just out of practice.
TL;DR: As someone with experience, you cannot just get over being shy/socially anxious but it is COMPLETELY POSSIBLE to overcome it so it doesn't affect your quality of life.
Do not be a chronic victim.
Phew...I think I've gone on long enough for one post.
only for you
