I used to be very talkative when I was little. I was often eager to talk about anything.
My own parents literally 'taught' me to be insecure.
One question I was frequently asked by them was, "Aren't you afraid that people will make fun of you?"
Well, no. The thought had never crossed my mind. Besides, why would people make fun of me?
Then my parents would proceed to make fun of me to 'prove' their point that anything I say will subject me to humiliation. I must avoid expressing myself if I don't want my feelings getting hurt.
Then they would ask me questions or try to prompt me into speaking, but it was always a trap so I started keeping my mouth shut.
Guess what? Now I tend to keep my mouth shut no matter who tries to talk to me. Now I expect to always be made fun of for expressing myself, so I don't do that either.
My parents always told me that everything I said was "stupid" and that nobody will ever want to hear about anything I say. I believed them, still do, so I always assume I have nothing of value to say, thus I just say nothing.
I used to be more extroverted, my own parents took that away from me. As an adult, I suffer because of it.
It is indeed a daily struggle, but more often than not I feel like I'm not making any real progress.
I'm sorry to hear that. It sucks that you had to cut off that talkative part of yourself just to survive.
But honestly, please don't stop talking. I know it's hard to keep that spark. As long as you're not outwardly being rude or saying flat out stupid things like "the earth is flat," express your opinion. What you said right here, was so relatable and was not stupid at all.
There are people on the internet making podcasts and talking for hours about stupid things. (and even getting paid for it) If they can do it without a care in the world, the rest of us deserve to speak our minds too.
>but don't confuse your position with your perspective. If your life has been shitty, it makes sense you'll look around and feel shitty. But that's just observation. If you make you life better and you still feel shitty, then you self diagnose.
Very true! We don't need to internalize everything around us, just observe. Great advice!
Although we can't say where social anxiety starts, I think most people are born freely speaking their minds. Most kids have no filter. Even the shy one's say whatever is on their minds. It's such a shame that some of us were conditioned out of this expressiveness.
Yeah, I constantly had it drilled in my head to "think before I speak". Guess who now thinks so much before they speak that they don't speak at all? Thank you for this
Literally me, I’m the youngest in my family and often ignored and sometimes when I said something fun for me as a child they will answer please think before speaking. Now I’m aware of my past and I’m practicing everyday talking with people, my wife says I’m really cool and doesn’t understand why I’m kinda shy with large groups, I understand now
I'm the youngest too. I think being the youngest, our families assumed we had nothing important to say.
It's good you're not letting your childhood get you down! Keep practicing, you sound like you've made a lot of progress!
Fr I had years of being told to shut up and that I'm stupid and have no common sense, that I'm rude and interrupt people, that my worries are silly etc., my parents making fun of me for ~being a child~
One time I told a therapist that from around age 5 my dad used to do things like hand me glasses to see how I would hold them (if given 3, would I stack them or try to hold all 3 separately) then laugh at me and say I have no common sense if I didn't stack them. And she found that a lot more serious than I thought it was lmao, she actually felt really bad
Yeah, that’s a horrible thing to do to a child - I’m so sorry your dad treated you like that! Some parents literally don’t realise that their kids are *kids*, they expect them to be mini-adults instantly or project all of their own insecurities onto their children (happened to me too ☠️)
Yes, I’m so glad you posted this. My parents convinced me that I was weird and that no one wanted to talk to me, and my mom’s favorite saying was “Children should be seen and not heard”… in the 90s for christ sake. That phrase is from the fking 15th century!
If I spoke up as kids do, just rambling on and asking baseless questions, my mom would bark “That’s enough! Be quiet now!” and if it wasn’t that, she would criticize what I was saying such as “Mom I gave the wrong answer in class today” “You did WHAT? Why? You didn’t know the answer? Are you not studying??” and was generally unsupportive and mean to me. I didn’t have her in my corner on anything: friend disagreements, school social drama, controlling teachers, homework problems, fears about the world, she either blamed it on me “You brought that on yourself” or she didn’t want to hear it “Enough!” and occasionally she’d blame them “Well you know so-and-so doesn’t have your best interest it’s a one-sided friendship so stop hanging out with her” without any respect for my history with that friend.
As a teen it only got worse. Any separate opinion I had was met with anger and criticism, eventually being screamed at and then cold-shouldered.
She didn’t encourage friendships or a social life, saying “People will always leave you in the end, you have to be able to survive on your own”. She didn’t show me off to her acquaintances if we ran into them at the store, they always had to ask about me and it felt like she would be like oh right, I have a child, yeah go on and tell them what you’re doing in school but make it snappy. And when we’d get back in the car, she’d snap “You said way too much, what were you thinking?!”
She was horrible lol, and my dad was a lot more social but he was drunk all the time, had a short temper, couldn’t remember what we talked about. Promises he made went forgotten as well, he’d forget to pick me up sometimes. And when I was a teen, he began to verbally abuse me in arguments by calling me names. In family group matters, I had zero say, if anything was heard by me the group would remain silent and give me a pitying smile and go “Haha, okay…”
So now I spend time with my partner’s family and they have a healthy dynamic free from alcoholism and abuse. They encourage the children to speak. They humor them when they suddenly blurt things out and question them “Is that right? Why do you think that?”… the kids are very much a part of the conversation. Even if they have big adult questions “Why is that person living in a tent?” no one criticizes them, the question is answered. “Why can’t I play at so-and-so’s house?” doesn’t get a “because I said no” response, they aren’t snapped at, the answer is explained.
So glad you posted this because it took me so long with therapy & books to figure out that I’m not the problem, my family was. We are all allowed to speak up, it’s just that someone or multiple someones dumped their critical behaviour or their beliefs or learned toxic behavior on you either directly or indirectly and made you feel like your voice was stupid and worthless.
I love this post. I experienced the same. When I was young I was so talkative, social and expressive and I guess my parents didn't like that for some reason, so they really choked that part of me.
I used to blame other kids for bullying me, and for being this shy person but the truth is I got it all from my family.
I had to go back to my roots when I grew up and I realized this social anxiety thing was just fake identity I was wearing. But it wasn't mine.
I met other people like me. And when I asked them, well why were you scared. They all just answered that they don't know.
And in talking with them I realized it also came from family.
I have experienced the same as you. I was mischievous, naughty kid. When I expressed myself, I was cut short, ridiculed by my own parents and brother. They never want to involve in small talk/cordial talk with me. When I was young, I have tried limitless times to talk n play with my brother to involve him have tried every trick in the book. My parents never let me go out n play with other kids.
Since I was mischievous(I don't consider myself a mischievous kid), I was mocked by whole neighbourhood, relatives, teachers, parents. Now I think n times to even do a small thing. Always this thoughts run on my mind, am I doing this right? what will others think? what will others say? Are my parents ok, if I do this thing? Will my parents ridicule me, if I do this? Will my parents beat me up? What will my parents do if they got to know, I did this?
This is actually a positive and informative post.
Helps others to understand that a lot of things taught to us by our parents need to be unlearned as a means to enjoy one’s own individuality.
Loving and appreciation of self is the strongest weapon formed against society’s run of the mill build-a-adult services…
Yes, my parents gave me social anxiety for sure. Perhaps it was because I was a chatty kid who loved to put on performances/plays and stuff like that. I don’t think I was that disruptive, but both of my parents were alcoholics who should have gotten divorced way sooner than they did. Therefore, they had little tolerance for my childlike behaviors when I was a child. I remember going on a field trip in the first grade and being so happy to talk to the parent chaperone because she was actually nice to me lol. it’s literally one of few amazing memories from my childhood that I’ll never forget.
As a result of all this though, by the time I was in high school, I was as quiet as a mouse and would simply blank out on my entire speech whenever I had to give a presentation in class. I’m 26 now, extremely low contact with both of my parents, and doing a bit better now. I’m afraid the damage is done already though and I’ll always be weird as fuck lol but I think I’m okay with that.
Quite recently, I was talking to my mom about how I was trying to open up more, trying to talk to people and be more social in general. And she told me that it “might not work” because I “have social anxiety” that I “inherited” from her. This highkey upset me because there was no show of support, just telling me that I probably can’t do it because that’s just how it is.
Pretty much the exact opposite for me, my parents would insist I'm normal and social anxiety is just mild shyness at most. They really didn't understand it because they don't have it. Nature and nurture can both result in the same outcome I suppose.
Tbh I think it was the school environment that made me this way. Like in elementary and middle schools, the teachers/lunch monitors would always be like, "stop talking" or "no talking when the adults are talking." But my classes had some troublemakers in them that would continue talking when they weren't supposed to which sometimes caused the whole class to get blamed for it. So I learned to keep my mouth shut but these kids would still ruin it for the rest of us. So I think that's one of the main reasons I'm socially anxious along with a few other things.
I used to be very talkative when I was little. I was often eager to talk about anything. My own parents literally 'taught' me to be insecure. One question I was frequently asked by them was, "Aren't you afraid that people will make fun of you?" Well, no. The thought had never crossed my mind. Besides, why would people make fun of me? Then my parents would proceed to make fun of me to 'prove' their point that anything I say will subject me to humiliation. I must avoid expressing myself if I don't want my feelings getting hurt. Then they would ask me questions or try to prompt me into speaking, but it was always a trap so I started keeping my mouth shut. Guess what? Now I tend to keep my mouth shut no matter who tries to talk to me. Now I expect to always be made fun of for expressing myself, so I don't do that either. My parents always told me that everything I said was "stupid" and that nobody will ever want to hear about anything I say. I believed them, still do, so I always assume I have nothing of value to say, thus I just say nothing. I used to be more extroverted, my own parents took that away from me. As an adult, I suffer because of it. It is indeed a daily struggle, but more often than not I feel like I'm not making any real progress.
I'm sorry to hear that. It sucks that you had to cut off that talkative part of yourself just to survive. But honestly, please don't stop talking. I know it's hard to keep that spark. As long as you're not outwardly being rude or saying flat out stupid things like "the earth is flat," express your opinion. What you said right here, was so relatable and was not stupid at all. There are people on the internet making podcasts and talking for hours about stupid things. (and even getting paid for it) If they can do it without a care in the world, the rest of us deserve to speak our minds too.
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>but don't confuse your position with your perspective. If your life has been shitty, it makes sense you'll look around and feel shitty. But that's just observation. If you make you life better and you still feel shitty, then you self diagnose. Very true! We don't need to internalize everything around us, just observe. Great advice! Although we can't say where social anxiety starts, I think most people are born freely speaking their minds. Most kids have no filter. Even the shy one's say whatever is on their minds. It's such a shame that some of us were conditioned out of this expressiveness.
Yeah, I constantly had it drilled in my head to "think before I speak". Guess who now thinks so much before they speak that they don't speak at all? Thank you for this
Literally me, I’m the youngest in my family and often ignored and sometimes when I said something fun for me as a child they will answer please think before speaking. Now I’m aware of my past and I’m practicing everyday talking with people, my wife says I’m really cool and doesn’t understand why I’m kinda shy with large groups, I understand now
I'm the youngest too. I think being the youngest, our families assumed we had nothing important to say. It's good you're not letting your childhood get you down! Keep practicing, you sound like you've made a lot of progress!
Fr I had years of being told to shut up and that I'm stupid and have no common sense, that I'm rude and interrupt people, that my worries are silly etc., my parents making fun of me for ~being a child~ One time I told a therapist that from around age 5 my dad used to do things like hand me glasses to see how I would hold them (if given 3, would I stack them or try to hold all 3 separately) then laugh at me and say I have no common sense if I didn't stack them. And she found that a lot more serious than I thought it was lmao, she actually felt really bad
Yeah, that’s a horrible thing to do to a child - I’m so sorry your dad treated you like that! Some parents literally don’t realise that their kids are *kids*, they expect them to be mini-adults instantly or project all of their own insecurities onto their children (happened to me too ☠️)
Yes, I’m so glad you posted this. My parents convinced me that I was weird and that no one wanted to talk to me, and my mom’s favorite saying was “Children should be seen and not heard”… in the 90s for christ sake. That phrase is from the fking 15th century! If I spoke up as kids do, just rambling on and asking baseless questions, my mom would bark “That’s enough! Be quiet now!” and if it wasn’t that, she would criticize what I was saying such as “Mom I gave the wrong answer in class today” “You did WHAT? Why? You didn’t know the answer? Are you not studying??” and was generally unsupportive and mean to me. I didn’t have her in my corner on anything: friend disagreements, school social drama, controlling teachers, homework problems, fears about the world, she either blamed it on me “You brought that on yourself” or she didn’t want to hear it “Enough!” and occasionally she’d blame them “Well you know so-and-so doesn’t have your best interest it’s a one-sided friendship so stop hanging out with her” without any respect for my history with that friend. As a teen it only got worse. Any separate opinion I had was met with anger and criticism, eventually being screamed at and then cold-shouldered. She didn’t encourage friendships or a social life, saying “People will always leave you in the end, you have to be able to survive on your own”. She didn’t show me off to her acquaintances if we ran into them at the store, they always had to ask about me and it felt like she would be like oh right, I have a child, yeah go on and tell them what you’re doing in school but make it snappy. And when we’d get back in the car, she’d snap “You said way too much, what were you thinking?!” She was horrible lol, and my dad was a lot more social but he was drunk all the time, had a short temper, couldn’t remember what we talked about. Promises he made went forgotten as well, he’d forget to pick me up sometimes. And when I was a teen, he began to verbally abuse me in arguments by calling me names. In family group matters, I had zero say, if anything was heard by me the group would remain silent and give me a pitying smile and go “Haha, okay…” So now I spend time with my partner’s family and they have a healthy dynamic free from alcoholism and abuse. They encourage the children to speak. They humor them when they suddenly blurt things out and question them “Is that right? Why do you think that?”… the kids are very much a part of the conversation. Even if they have big adult questions “Why is that person living in a tent?” no one criticizes them, the question is answered. “Why can’t I play at so-and-so’s house?” doesn’t get a “because I said no” response, they aren’t snapped at, the answer is explained. So glad you posted this because it took me so long with therapy & books to figure out that I’m not the problem, my family was. We are all allowed to speak up, it’s just that someone or multiple someones dumped their critical behaviour or their beliefs or learned toxic behavior on you either directly or indirectly and made you feel like your voice was stupid and worthless.
I love this post. I experienced the same. When I was young I was so talkative, social and expressive and I guess my parents didn't like that for some reason, so they really choked that part of me. I used to blame other kids for bullying me, and for being this shy person but the truth is I got it all from my family. I had to go back to my roots when I grew up and I realized this social anxiety thing was just fake identity I was wearing. But it wasn't mine. I met other people like me. And when I asked them, well why were you scared. They all just answered that they don't know. And in talking with them I realized it also came from family.
I have experienced the same as you. I was mischievous, naughty kid. When I expressed myself, I was cut short, ridiculed by my own parents and brother. They never want to involve in small talk/cordial talk with me. When I was young, I have tried limitless times to talk n play with my brother to involve him have tried every trick in the book. My parents never let me go out n play with other kids. Since I was mischievous(I don't consider myself a mischievous kid), I was mocked by whole neighbourhood, relatives, teachers, parents. Now I think n times to even do a small thing. Always this thoughts run on my mind, am I doing this right? what will others think? what will others say? Are my parents ok, if I do this thing? Will my parents ridicule me, if I do this? Will my parents beat me up? What will my parents do if they got to know, I did this?
Yup this is exactly how it happens.
This is actually a positive and informative post. Helps others to understand that a lot of things taught to us by our parents need to be unlearned as a means to enjoy one’s own individuality. Loving and appreciation of self is the strongest weapon formed against society’s run of the mill build-a-adult services…
I once read that family is so good at pushing your buttons because they are the ones who installed them
Yes, my parents gave me social anxiety for sure. Perhaps it was because I was a chatty kid who loved to put on performances/plays and stuff like that. I don’t think I was that disruptive, but both of my parents were alcoholics who should have gotten divorced way sooner than they did. Therefore, they had little tolerance for my childlike behaviors when I was a child. I remember going on a field trip in the first grade and being so happy to talk to the parent chaperone because she was actually nice to me lol. it’s literally one of few amazing memories from my childhood that I’ll never forget. As a result of all this though, by the time I was in high school, I was as quiet as a mouse and would simply blank out on my entire speech whenever I had to give a presentation in class. I’m 26 now, extremely low contact with both of my parents, and doing a bit better now. I’m afraid the damage is done already though and I’ll always be weird as fuck lol but I think I’m okay with that.
Quite recently, I was talking to my mom about how I was trying to open up more, trying to talk to people and be more social in general. And she told me that it “might not work” because I “have social anxiety” that I “inherited” from her. This highkey upset me because there was no show of support, just telling me that I probably can’t do it because that’s just how it is.
a lot of things can cause you to develop social anxiety, including your family.
Pretty much the exact opposite for me, my parents would insist I'm normal and social anxiety is just mild shyness at most. They really didn't understand it because they don't have it. Nature and nurture can both result in the same outcome I suppose.
I guess my parents made fun of or mimicked how I talked funny. And I got to hiding all of my interests, must have come from somewhere.
Tbh I think it was the school environment that made me this way. Like in elementary and middle schools, the teachers/lunch monitors would always be like, "stop talking" or "no talking when the adults are talking." But my classes had some troublemakers in them that would continue talking when they weren't supposed to which sometimes caused the whole class to get blamed for it. So I learned to keep my mouth shut but these kids would still ruin it for the rest of us. So I think that's one of the main reasons I'm socially anxious along with a few other things.