“I have social anxiety.”
I remember the first time this thought occurred to me. I was sitting in a Starbucks cross-examining myself using a list of symptoms on WebMD:
(✓)Worry about embarrassing or humiliating yourself
(✓)Fear that others will notice that you look anxious
(✓) Avoidance of situations where you might be the center of attention
(✓) Anxiety in anticipation of a feared activity or event
(✓) Analysis of your performance and identification of flaws in your interactions after a social situation
I was 9 months into running my basketball training business full-time when I embarked on my amateur foray into psychoanalysis. During those 9 months I earned a whopping $8k. I didn’t consider that amount of money nothing, but it was hard for me to call it a success.
Eventually, my financial struggles led me to a place of mental and emotional exhaustion. With limited language for what I was experiencing and a fear of vulnerability, I turned to my journal. In time my entries began to reveal a handful of recurring thoughts and feelings. The same thoughts and feelings I found on WebMD on that fateful day in Starbucks.
Fast forward 5 years and I’m sitting across from my counselor, now mentor, sharing my experience with social anxiety. As soon as I finished telling him about my symptoms and self-diagnosis he looked me in the eyes and said, “Jamal, you don’t have social anxiety. You have deep-seated insecurities.”
His words hit me like a spell as I froze beneath them. I learned a lot from our sessions together, including how flawed my perception of the world was and how little I had known about myself. But he couldn’t be right about this too…could he?
As I took time to consider his observation, I remembered these words from Dr. William Glasser, author of Choice Theory, “It is almost impossible for anyone…to continue to choose misery after becoming aware that it is a choice.”
My counselor was right.
Social anxiety is a real ailment but not one I suffered from. Instead, it was an excuse for me to continue to live motivated by fear. Without it, I would have to make a choice, confront my insecurities or remain the same.
Learning about misdiagnosis didn’t allow me to magically rid myself of my insecurities, but it did help me understand that I had the power to confront them – even if I did so fearfully.
Thinking back on my experience, I find myself wondering how many of us fall victim to perfectionism because we believe it is something other than our fears and doubts wrapped into a socially accepted concept?
Far too many I imagine.
Art to Self: Perfectionism is insecurity.
Notes on Imperfection
Nature is weird and still beautiful.
A note from Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Color Purple Alice Walker.
Perfect things fail.
A note from fashion designer and master tailor Yohji Yamamoto.
Have you ever?
A note from the surrealist artist Salvador Dali.
Notes from Others
Erm, have we stopped asking questions by
Asking questions is an expression of love for not only each other but all that exists in life. It’s curiosity.
That Time I Got Friend Zoned by
Does friendship feel like pity or a consolation prize? If yes, you might want to unpack why the absence of sex and physical intimacy feels like you’re not getting anything of value.
The House We Bought and Lost by
...in the absence of home, I am at home everywhere, if only in my elastic mind.
After Birth Part 1 & Part 2 by
“Oh, Mrs Shondra, you lose weight and you walk again." I wanted to say," Fuck off, Nurse Rasha. I just had a baby AND a stroke!" but all my broken spirit could do was sob.
Embarking on Eudaimonia with Jamal Robinson by
A HUGE thank you to the amazing Ta for having me as a guest on her newsletter!
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So glad I had the time to read one of your articles today, Jamal! I love the quotes and the link of perfectionism to insecurity. It’s a reminder I needed, for sure. I’d like to raise you one though— social anxiety and any anxiety for that matter, is also a compounded symptom of core issues, core fears and limiting beliefs like insecurities. These things that end up becoming so strong we have to pathologize them— they’re just layers and layers of avoidance to view and experience the original fear. Sometimes we need medication or therapeutic intervention when we have gone too far into the fear— but in the end, it all comes down to the same genetic programmings to protect us. We all mirror each other. Thank you so much for providing the space for such thoughts today. Appreciate you!
In lieu of writing a novel about perfectionism in this comment, I will instead offer a book recommendation that helped me both see my perfectionism for what it is and see the beauty in it. The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler.