NEW YORK - THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME

About six years ago I was diagnosed with social anxiety and put on meds after a single visit with a college counselor in which I confided in her that I was suddenly unable to walk out of my apartment to get the mail unless it was dark outside. I took my pills for over a year, and then flushed them after I woke up one day and realized that I had become fat as hell and lost all impulse control.

Now that it has become somewhat “cool” to be awkward, I hide behind a hoodie  and a set of dark framed glasses so that people just assume I’m a music fan or something, and not the boiling pot of sweaty nerves that I really am. Because in reality, I wear hoodies because it’s the socially acceptable form of wrapping myself in a blanket, and I wear thick glasses because I’m not allowed to go about my daily business with a Halloween mask on, although I’d very much like to. You know the character in Hotel New Hampshire who wears the bear costume? Yeah, I’d love that.

Some days, just walking down the street to go wherever, I will start to feel like my walking pattern is becoming comically exaggerated. I will start to tell myself that my butt is bopping up and down to some unheard rhythm, or that my legs are high stepping like the leader of a marching band. Then my eyes will start to water, and to comfort myself, I will do a series of fake yawns. The fake yawns happen pretty much all throughout the day as a way to disguise that I’m hyperventilating.

I also never know what to do with my arms, so I just shove them into my pockets. During T-shirt weather, I’m fucked, so I always make sure to wear a bag that I can clutch on to for dear life. Oddly enough, I like to be outside quite a bit because I love the smell of dirt and fresh air. I also love to go places in the hopes of seeing something really weird happen. If I am at a party or social gathering, I will try very hard to get drunk so that I can talk. If I talk to strangers and am completely sober, chances are I will pick a great topic like how being zapped with a police taser will make you pee, or I will just make out with you. Because we all know that it’s easier to be physically intimate with someone than verbally intimate.

If I say something funny, which I am apt to do, and more than three people turn to look at me to share in the laughter, my eyes will water and my neck will turn red.  Talking on the phone is an impossibility because the idea of bad reception, or the worry that the person I’m talking to will also be talking to other people in the background, is mortifying to me. I have had people ask me if I was raped by a telephone in my past, and I can only assume that it is a logical explanation. As a journalist, this phone thing becomes problematic because I conduct phone interviews on a frequent basis. To combat this, I set the interview for as far into the future as I can, and then worry about it daily until it happens. On the day of the interview, I will smoke a cigarette for each hour up till the interview is set to take place. This makes for good interviews. And now typing all of this makes me want to take a nap. Bye.

KELLY McCLURE

Comments

[stilly]

What is it with Kelly and getting the mail that triggers a bad thing happening? isn't that how she found out her neighbor died

convert to islam. you can wear all kinds of blankets and shit and hide your arms as much as you damn well please. cover your face, too. plus, it comes with the best built-in excuse possible. you might get decapitated if you expose yourself. voila!

[Ginger Snap]

Well at least you don't work at Walmart.

[anonymous]

what were you on?
do social anxiety drugs make you feel drunk all the time, without being incoherent? that's sort of what my experience with xanax is like, which is beautifully enough available for purchase in the mexican airport--and basically anywhere else not the US

[anonymous]

i think guys can get away with being awkward and shy. girls have tried to compensate for this by being all smiley and aggressive, which usually doesn't work. not to turn this into a gender thing, but why are most men such pussies? is it 2009 or is it just new york?

[anonymous]

can you do another blog post trying to explain this? did someone, like, verbally abuse you and every other boy you know so that you had to revert into the world of video games and then forget how to be human?

What?

[farts@fart.com]

I was raped my a telephone tooooooooooooo

[shitbag]

look, has it not come across your little pea brain that just MAYBE her anxiety disorder could be something that just occurred over time? possibly hereditary from introvert parents?

[eww]

my phone finger fucked me. I have a hard time picking up my phone.

farts-
I don't think that putting your phone on vibrate and sticking it in your ass constitutes rape by phone.

[Uland]

Yeah, you "inherit" "social anxiety"... Please..
I feel for the author of this post, but man, it's got to come down to her changing herself.It isn't your dna's or other people who're doing this to you- It's you. Get out of town for a year and get yourself together.

[Jamie]

This article makes me want to try to hug you.

[bingo bango]

in some weird twist of grizzly fate, i just got the lost at e minor newsletter and look what's in it:

www.lostateminor.com/2009/02/26/eiko-shizawas-bear-sleeping-bag/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_content=283201967&utm_campaign=Issue207+_+dkckr&utm_term=Permanent+link+to+Xiao+He

i expect a shout out next blog, kelly.

[MilkMan]

There's nothing wrong with you other than you are a garden variety spoiled brat. Get a fucking job and stop living off of your parents. Or go enlist and fight in the war. Only in America are there jagoffs like you. Your problem is that you feel like no one pays enough attention to you. Your problem is that you didn't turn out to be who you thought you were going to be. Too bad. Better get out there and do something with your life because before you know it you're going to be old and soon after that you're going to die. Or, better yet, if you can't make it in this life, kill yourself. But you're not interesting and you're not funny. There are a million people just like you and I'm getting tired of hearing about it.

You can be a Jawa. Jawa's wear robes all year and don't have to be Muslim.

[blackstronaut]

that's not social anxiety disorder, its just bad hair syndrome. nothing a good perm and a tramp stamp won't cure

wow milkman you're a dick.....

[MilkMan]

Coming from a siteful of cocks I'll take that as a compliment.

[matt]

milkman's a total dick. I'm glad he's got his life figured out so well that he has to troll vice's message boards and tell people to fuck off to get a kick. must be sweet to be so enlightened.

[Caoilte]

Shyness is not a disorder, or an illness. It's an under-appreciated attitude.

Try to avoid internalizing the harsh judgments of others. Remember, they're wrong. You're right. When you let them get to you, that's how it becomes pathological.

You don't need to be "cured." You need to figure how to make yourself work in a culture that's fucked up.

Hey, shy people didn't start World War II. Who the fuck are they to judge us?

[MilkMan]

I love it when the people who visit this site get all sensitivo. And yeah, Matt, it is pretty sweet to be so enlightened. It's even sweeter to not be a fucking whiner and a tool who's strung out on meds all the time for no good reason other than life is hard. Go make fun of the way some random dude is dressed, Matt. It'll make you feel much better about that lame t-shirt you decided to wear today.

[Francis]

Ever heard of second opinions?

[matt]

po' widdle milkman. angry much?

[MilkMan]

Angry all the time, Matty. But thanks for pointing out the obvious. That's a hearty skill that should come in handy for you one day.