by Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D.
This fits my personal experience of depression and social anxiety over my life better than the standard descriptions. One of these days I’m going to do a post on social anxiety as a learning disability….
People with social anxiety disorder experience extreme fears about being evaluated by others, causing them to feel so distressed that they readily can become loners. However, even without having an actual diagnosis of social anxiety disorder, which requires meeting a specific set of criteria, people who experience the symptoms of social anxiety can suffer from extreme self-doubts about how others will regard them. The accompanying unhappiness they experience may also border on feeling depressed and hopeless. In a new study by Washington University in St. Louis psychologists led by Julia Langer (2019), the overlap among the symptoms of both sets of disorders was tested using a unique methodological approach. The findings of this study suggest ways that you can approach your own feelings of social anxiety and depression by addressing those symptoms directly.