Social Anxiety Disorders are written in the plural, because there are so many of them.
One person may panic by suddenly finding themselves the centre of attention, perhaps because of something they've said, or the fact that for some reason they're blushing.
Someone else may be terrified of talking on the telephone.
I mentioned blushing.
One of the reasons that I absolutely hated my preparatory school was that we suffered under a headmaster named Bully.
He was a Bully by name, and a bully by nature.
For some reason of which I was never aware, he picked on me.
Whether it was through dislike, or whether I was a nice, handy target, goodness knows.
Meal times could be hell on earth on occasion.
There were about 80 boys in the school, and we rotated tables.
A master was in charge of every table, so most of the time everything went smoothly.
Then I'd find myself sitting at Bully's table.
His great sport was to make me blush, and since I was very prone to this debility, I obliged him at his will.
"Look.
Look," he'd say, leaning forward and pointing down the table at me.
"Look.
He's turning red.
Look at him.
He's as red as a beetroot.
" Needless to say, the whole school would join in with gusto, laughing and catcalling.
This went on through my junior and middle years, but when I became a senior, more to my surprise than anyone else's, I found myself Captain of School.
His blushing bouts had worn rather thin some time before, but we were always crossing swords.
By this time, I stood up to him, and like any other bully, he used to back down.
I've often wondered whether he'd have persecuted me in that way if he'd known the damage his actions did to me in later life.
I suffered a number of social anxiety disorders.
Blushing, of course, a terror of being the centre of attention, a dread of social occasions.
If I knew I had to suffer such an event, I would experience the most awful anxiety until I was actually at the function, or meeting, or whatever it was.
It was in my late teens that I developed the knack of confronting the object of my anxiety, as I mentioned in a previous article.
Simply imagine yourself at the event, and run through everything that could possibly go wrong.
Having completed this exercise, I found that the anxiety was decidedly lessened.
I recommend this method most strongly.
Indeed, throughout my life, I've found that confronting a problem head on is really the best thing to do.
How well I know the symptoms of social anxiety disorder.
Your heart hammering in your chest.
Sweat pouring off you, which can be particularly distressing if you're wearing your best suit and trying to look cool, calm and collected.
My shirt and collar would be drenched with perspiration, and I'd rush to the restroom to try to repair my obviously damaged appearance.
I'd look in the mirror and see this rag doll-type apparition looking back at me.
As I grew older, these awful feelings did recede somewhat, but they've never entirely left me even to-day.
If I can possibly duck out of a social gathering, I'll do so.
Considering my later depression, the causes could well have been an imbalance of serotonin, but also psychological, their nascence being the jocular attentions of that miserable headmaster.
As I said before, I really don't think he had any idea of the harm he was doing.
This was long before the different mental illnesses were taken seriously by the general population.
You were either sane or nuts! Thank God there's more understanding nowadays