mental health disorders
Social Anxiety Disorder
Introduction
Social anxiety disorder is characterized by fear or anxiety about certain social or performance situations. These situations are often avoided or endured with much distress. Humans are social animals, and their ability to relate comfortably in social situations affects many important aspects of their lives, including family, education, work, leisure, dating, and relationships. In social anxiety disorder, certain situations or objects make people fearful and anxious and cause them to avoid those things. The fear and anxiety are out of proportion to the actual threat. Although some anxiety in social situations is normal, people with social anxiety disorder have so much anxiety that they either avoid social situations or endure them with distress. About 13% of people have social anxiety disorder sometime in their life. The disorder affects about 9% of women and 7% of men yearly. Some adults with social anxiety disorder were shy as children, while others did not develop significant anxiety symptoms until after puberty. People with social anxiety disorder are concerned that their performance or actions will seem inappropriate. Often, they worry that their anxiety will be obvious—that they will sweat, blush, vomit, or tremble or that their voice will quaver. They also worry that they will lose their train of thought or that they will not be able to find the words to express themselves. Some social anxiety is tied to specific performance situations, producing anxiety only when the people must perform a particular activity in public. The same activity performed alone produces no anxiety. Situations that commonly trigger anxiety among people with social anxiety disorder include the following: Public speaking Performing publicly, such as reading in church or playing a musical instrument Eating with others Meeting new people Having a conversation Signing a document before witnesses Using a public bathroom Some people have social anxiety symptoms in one or a few specific situations, while others experience them in a broader range of settings. In either type of social anxiety, people fear that if they fail to meet other people's expectations or are scrutinized in social interactions, they will feel embarrassed, humiliated, or rejected, or will offend others. People may or may not recognize that their fears are excessive. 