When All Eyes Seem to Be Upon You

“Torture” is the word Jerry uses to describe it. “Every time I walked into a classroom,” he says, “I would start sweating profusely, my mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and I didn’t think I would be able to talk—even if my life depended on it. Then I would start to feel this intense heat rise up through my arms and legs and face and I would turn bright red—as if my entire body was blushing.”

JERRY suffers from social phobia, a condition characterized by an intense fear of being scrutinized by others and of being publicly humiliated. “The person with social phobia believes that all eyes are on him,” says a booklet published by the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. “The anxiety can lead to panic-like attacks including such symptoms as heart palpitations, faintness, shortness of breath, and profuse sweating.”

Some might tend to dismiss the fears of social phobics, saying that they should just force themselves to ignore their shyness and “get out there and meet people.” Granted, part of combating social phobia involves confronting your fears. However, there is a vast difference between shyness and social phobia. “Unlike ordinary shyness,” says Jerilyn Ross, “social phobia is so severe that it interferes with daily functioning, at work, at school, and in almost all interpersonal relationships.”

Studies suggest that the lives of millions of people are impaired by social phobia.a Consider some fears that are associated with this debilitating condition.

The Fears of Social Phobia

Public speaking. Doug recalls being seized by panic while giving a brief speech to a local citizens’ group. “All of a sudden I broke out in a cold sweat,” he says. “My heart was pounding. I was trembling, shaking. My throat felt like it was closing up, making it difficult for me to get the words out.” Granted, almost everyone gets jittery when standing before an audience. But the social phobic experiences a wave of terror that is intense and unremitting, and it does not diminish with practice. Indeed, Doug came to view even the most trivial speaking opportunity as if it were a threat to his life.

Eating in the presence of others. Since social phobics believe that they are being scrutinized, even a simple meal can become a nightmarish ordeal. They worry that their hands will shake, that they will spill their food or miss their mouths, or even that they will get sick. These fears can become self-fulfilling prophecies. The book Dying of Embarrassment notes: “The more you worry about the possibility of doing something embarrassing, the more anxious you become. The more anxious you become, the more likely you are to actually begin trembling or make abrupt, clumsy movements. This problem can build to the point where it becomes difficult to get food or a beverage to your mouth without dropping or spilling it.”

Writing in the presence of others. Fearing that their hand will shake or that they will be observed scribbling illegibly, many social phobics panic when they have to sign a check or perform any other writing task while being watched. Sam, for example, was mortified when his employer required that he sign a log book in front of a security guard at the beginning of each workday. “I couldn’t do it,” Sam says. “My hand would shake so badly that I had to control it with the other hand in order to hit the line and then you couldn’t read what I had written.”

Using the telephone. Dr. John R. Marshall says that many of his patients confessed that they avoided using the phone whenever possible. “They worried that they would fail to make the appropriate response,” he says. “Others feared that, because they would not know what to say, embarrassing silences would ensue and at the point when the conversation falters, anxiety would cause their voices to change, quiver, or squeak. They were terrified that they might stammer, stutter, or in other embarrassing ways give evidence of their disturbed state.”

Interacting with people. Some social phobics fear virtually any situation that involves mingling with others. Often, they are particularly terrified of making eye contact. “People with severe social phobias often feel anxious uncertainty about where to direct their eyes and how to respond when others look at them,” says The Harvard Mental Health Letter. “They avoid eye contact because they feel as though they do not know when to look and when to look away. They imagine that others will misinterpret their gaze.”

There are other fears associated with social phobia. Many, for example, are terrified of using public rest rooms. Others dread shopping under the gaze of a salesperson. “I’m so self-conscious I often don’t even see what I’m looking at,” says one woman. “I’m always expecting or imagining the person behind the counter to demand that I just figure out what I want and stop wasting their time.”

How Do They Attempt to Cope?

Those who do not have the disorder find the pain of social phobia difficult to comprehend. One sufferer describes his experience as “the most awful kind of embarrassment anyone could ever imagine!” Another admits: “I think about suicide all the time.”

Sadly, many social phobics turn to alcohol in an effort to alleviate their anxiety.b While it may bring temporary relief, in the long run, abuse of alcohol only adds to the sufferer’s problems. Dr. John R. Marshall notes: “More than one of my patients with little experience in social drinking have drunk themselves into a stupor—in the effort to calm themselves before or during a social situation, only to add to the very humiliation in the eyes of others that they feared so intensely.”

Perhaps the most common coping strategy among social phobics is avoidance. Yes, many simply stay away from the situations that they dread. “I avoided as many situations as possible, even talking on the telephone,” says a social phobic named Lorraine. In time, however, many sufferers find that avoidance imprisons them rather than protects them. “After a while,” says Lorraine, “the loneliness and boredom would overwhelm me.”

Avoidance can become “a self-reinforcing trap,” warns Jerilyn Ross. “And every act of avoidance,” she adds, “makes that trap easier to fall into the next time—until avoidance becomes an almost automatic response.” Some sufferers routinely decline dinner invitations or turn down job opportunities that involve interacting with people. As a result, they never learn to confront their fears and conquer them. As Dr. Richard Heimberg puts it, “their lives are filled with imagined rejections that never came about and imagined failures at jobs they never tried because they avoided them.”

There is, however, good news about social phobia: It is treatable. Of course, it is impossible—even undesirable—to eliminate every form of anxiety altogether. Yet, those who suffer from social phobia can learn to control their fears, and the Bible contains practical counsel that can help.

[Footnotes]

[Pictures on page 5]

For the social phobic, normal interactions become a nightmarish ordeal