Not All Social Anxiety Is The Same. Here's How To Combat Each Type.

Jan Tong/EyeEm via Getty Images "Your foibles and imperfections are endearing, welcoming, and approachable. “It’s important for them to understand, as an initial step, what they imagine that catastrophe is.” From his research, Moscovitch has identified four expressions ― or types ― of social anxiety: Anxiety over our social skills and behaviors; Anxiety over our anxiety; Anxiety over our physical appearance; Anxiety over our character. Anxiety over our social skills and behavior If you clam up at the mere suggestion of “breaking out into small groups for discussion” or avoid small talk like the plague, your social anxiety is probably centered around your social skills “Maybe you’re afraid of not knowing how to have a conversation and worry that if you talk with other people, they’ll find you awkward and unappealing,” Moscovitch said. “You imagine that people will overtly ridicule you or cut the conversation short and walk away with a look of distaste on their faces.” i’d rather take a razor scooter to the ankle than tell the class a fun fact about myself — College Student January 26, 2018 While your normal coping mechanism may be to script out everything you’ll say in advance ― or to find a corner at a party to thumb through your phone the rest of the night ― Moscovitch suggests leaning into the situation. “The cruel paradox of social anxiety is that the things we do to conceal our anxiety ― overdoing it on the makeup, wearing our hair over our face, wearing long sleeves in the middle of summer― often look weirder than whatever ‘defect’ we’re trying to conceal,” she said.