Amidst all of the fear, disappointment and anger I’ve felt in the year since this pandemic first disrupted our lives, one particularly pernicious worm of an emotion has burrowed itself deep inside my brain: social anxiety.
Anxiety around talking to people, meeting new people or otherwise having to entertain groups of friends is nothing new for me, but it has become noticeably more pronounced since I returned to campus in fall 2020. Interestingly, my fears are not so much rooted in a fear of contracting COVID-19 but in the guilt I know I would feel if I unknowingly infected a friend.
With the persistent thought that I am a reckless person if I deliberately choose to see another soul, I have understandably been on edge about reaching out to my friends to spend time together.
Simultaneously, I know I will get incredibly sad and unmotivated if I simply isolate myself.
These competing drives have combined in the worst way possible to create new psychological responses that rule me both when I’m alone and with people.
I fear that everyone I reach out to either resents me for attempting to see them during a pandemic or for not making the effort to see them sooner.
I recognize that these are directly opposite fears, but that does nothing to diminish their hold on me. If anything, it means that at least one of the fears has to be valid…right?
To cope, I’ve invented the concept of a mental “people pass.” It works somewhat like a punch card: everyone has a certain number of people they can safely see each week, and every interaction fills an allotted slot. I know that isn’t how viruses work, but sometimes deception is necessary for self-preservation.
Unfortunately, the “people pass” mentality quickly backfired. It wasn’t long before I started worrying that if I spent time with someone and I wasn’t interesting or chatty or funny enough, they would resent me for wasting their pass.
Needless to say, constantly worrying over whether I am worth talking to is not an effective method for loosening up and having fun.
When I opened up about this crushing anxiety to two of my friends (partly as a release, partly to explain my awkward energy), I was surprised at how closely they related to me. These laid-back, confident girls who would regularly befriend strangers at Mike’s freshman year, confessed to feeling the same irrational, persistent fear.
The cruelest irony in all of this? We all agreed that in the months immediately before our sophomore year was canceled indefinitely on March 13, 2020, we were becoming more secure than ever in our personalities and interests.
Sure, wistful hindsight is at play here, but I can genuinely point to several interactions in February and March 2020 where I remember feeling like I was finally getting the hang of the “college experience.”
When I received my first Pfizer vaccine dose yesterday, I experienced for the first time in months a sense of excitement that maybe I could return to the confidence and social ease I felt in those months immediately pre-pandemic.
I’m scared that my brain may have been irreparably altered by these lonely months. But, I have to remain hopeful that after enough parties, animated conversations and chance encounters with beloved acquaintances, untainted by the threat of a virus, I can finally feel fully human again.
Cécile Girard is a 21-year-old psychology junior from Lake Charles.