253. The Walking Dread

 

Me and social anxiety are BFFs. We have been tightly wound together since my testicles dropped belatedly (according to my locker room observations). My anxiety  peaked in high school, in which it took a worrisome spike. Walking through the hallways of that fountain of anxiety we call high school, I remember thinking that I had zits pulsing and oozing and generally Akira-monstering throughout my face and that everyone was staring at me. 

Narcissism and social anxiety can sometimes meet in the middle. They meet in the Venn's Vagina, as I like to call the space between two circles.  I was in the Venn's Vagina during high school. If I recall correctly, the only vagina I was in during high school.

My social anxiety got better after high school, but as everything in the mental health realm, it's never totally gone. I'm a recovering nervous Nellie. Or do we guys have nervous Ned?

This comic is based on the thoughts that flutter wildly in my head, thoughts I’ve learned to calm down. I can spiral down easily if I allow it. I rarely allow it these days thanks to drugs, alcohol, meditation and lately, some exercise. Alcohol and drugs (legal and prescribed) will likely pry some years off my high score and affect my cognitive function over time, but in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."  In my case violence only comes when playing video games, but close enough.

The next comic or two will also be around my social anxiety as I've been thinking a lot about how far I've come and the things that have worked. You’ve been warned.