Social anxiety is a big part of my life.

My earliest memory of it is when I was in 1st Grade. I was a child, I knew nothing, I thought it was simply me being shy. Ironically, I was class president, and no, I don't know why. In my school, whenever the teacher comes in, the class president would have to say something to order the other students to stand up and greet said teacher. I did not do it for the whole entire year, because I thought it was awkward to do so. Moreover, I was too scared to say anything in the classroom, it made me uncomfortable. I would receive countless complaints from teachers as they felt they were being disrespected. I wanted to explain but I couldn't, I didn't know what to say and I was afraid of how they would react.

There was also one other time when I had M&Ms during breaktime. I was a slow eater so I didn't finish it on time. Foolishly, I poured whatever was left onto my hand and threw away the package (seriously you wouldn't believe how stupid I was back then). I was pretty certain that if I kept it in my hand, I would have been able to eat it faster at the end of the period. Eventually, it melted. My hand was a colorful mess (and not the good kind), and I was too anxious to ask the teacher to let me go clean it up. I ended up holding a mini chocolate disaster until school ended, and let me tell y'all it was nasty.

Social anxiety accompanied me until I was in highschool, it grew up alongside me.

But I'm going off to college soon, I have big plans ahead that social-anxiety wouldn't be able to keep up with, so I am pushing it away.

I have been trying hard to have more interactions with people.

When I was in 10th Grade, I had the help of the Internet. What a good friend it was, still is. I made friends with a bunch of people in my school through Facebook, and I even texted them. It got a little bit easier when I had already got to know them online. I talked, in real life, I had chats with people. I made 6 new close friends that year.

Summer of 2017 was wild. I joined my school's English club, 1 small charity event that helped raise 500 dollars, 1 big charity organization, 1 non-profit organization that helps educate and puts more morality in people, another big event where I would work a part-time job for 2 days to get experience and my salary would go to charity, and I'm planning on joining my school's badminton club. For all of the above, I had to go through interviews in order to get in. I did not receive any rejection or any complaint about my lack of communicating skills, not even one.

It wasn't easy. I still have social anxiety, but I am forcing it to go away, even though it wants to stay, it wants to exist. Social anxiety tried to stop me right from the moment I was applying for those things, as soon as I typed in my name. I didn't care. Bitch is an attention seeker. It is not worthy of my time and effort.

So I'm letting it go. It was good for me for a while, kept me in my comfort zone and out of trouble. But it's time for me to get outside, to explore the world, to break free.