Social Anxiety. Running a Mental Marathon

I’d love to tell you that I’m a naturally chill person, but my old journals suggest otherwise. I found a note from two years ago. It’s less of an inspirational quote and more of accidental autopsy of my own social anxiety. Apparently, Past Me was really going through it, and she didn’t mind calling herself out.

I was flipping through an old notebook the other day. I tripped over a sentence I wrote about two years ago. I actually laughed. Mostly because I don’t remember writing it. This usually means it emerged from a very specific, hyper-lucid brand of social exhaustion.

It reads:

 “Since I’m already hyper-aware of everyone else, I should probably check if I’m the only one holding my breath. I don’t need to see how I measure up. I only need to see how much I’m shrinking just to fit in.”

Ouch. Past Me was really calling herself out, wasn’t she?

I think I was finally done using comparison as a stick to beat myself with. I figured, look, if I’m already going to obsessively scan the room, and analyse everyone’s vibes like an unlicensed therapist. Can that habit at least do me a favour for once?

You know that feeling? You’re in a conversation, everything is “fine,” but you’re doing a massive amount of quiet, internal engineering. You’re monitoring your tone. Softening your opinions, and basically performing a one-person hospitality show to make sure nobody feels even a flicker of awkwardness.
Then you get home. You drop your keys and sit on the sofa with your coat still on. You stare at the wall for twenty minutes. You feel like you just ran a marathon in leather boots, even though “nothing” happened. I used to call this “being self-aware.” It sounds so much classier than admitting I was overworking myself to stay low-maintenance. I was realising that being comfortable has nothing to do with being the loudest person in the room. It’s more about not running a constant background self-monitoring program. It turns out, you can run a full-scale marathon while sitting perfectly still. You just have to spend the whole time smoothing out a wrinkle that’s not there.

I’d love to tell you that after I wrote that line, I had a massive epiphany and never people-pleased again. But let’s be real: I probably just closed the notebook, and apologised to a houseplant for bumping into it. I often catch myself bracing. And I catch myself smoothing things over before I’ve even checked if there’s a wrinkle. That one entry in my journal didn’t fix me. However, it made it much harder to pretend I don’t notice the contorting anymore.
And honestly? Sometimes, just catching yourself in the act is the only win you need for the day.

Anyways, I’m still figuring out how to exist in a room without trying to curate the entire atmosphere. But I’m curious: what’s the thing you do when you’re contorting? Are you the person who laughs at every joke just to keep the energy up? Or the one who apologises for things that aren’t your fault? Let’s swap notes in the comments.

Thanks a bunch for reading!