Social Anxiety: When Being Around People Takes More Than It Should
It's not shyness. It's the exhausting work of monitoring, managing, and performing your way through every interaction.
You might look fine on the outside. Maybe even confident. But inside, there's a running script. Before you arrive, you're rehearsing. While you're there, you're monitoring. And after you leave, you're replaying every word, every pause, every moment where you might have said the wrong thing.
Social anxiety isn't about not liking people. For many, it's the opposite. You want connection. You just can't seem to get there without the weight of self-consciousness making everything harder than it should be.
This page is here to name what that experience actually feels like. And to show you that there's a kind of therapy that doesn't ask you to force your way through it, but helps you soften the pattern from the inside.
Introversion and social anxiety are not the same thing
This is one of the most common points of confusion, and it matters to get it right. Because being told you're "just introverted" when you're actually living with social anxiety can make you feel like your struggle isn't real. Like you should just accept it as part of who you are.
Introversion is a preference. Introverts may enjoy quiet time, recharge alone, and prefer smaller gatherings. But they can engage socially without dread or distress. It's a matter of energy, not fear.
Social anxiety is different. It's not a preference for less stimulation. It's a persistent fear of being judged, rejected, embarrassed, or exposed. It's not choosing to be quiet. It's wanting to speak and being unable to because the fear is too loud.
Some people with social anxiety are actually quite extroverted by nature. They want to be at the gathering. They want to speak up in the meeting. They want to say yes to the invitation. But the anticipation, the self-monitoring, and the post-event critique make it so costly that they start pulling back anyway.
If you've ever wanted to connect but felt like something invisible was standing between you and the room, that's not introversion. That's anxiety. And it deserves more than a personality label.
The inner critic loop
Social anxiety often comes with a voice. Not a literal one, but a running internal commentary that evaluates everything you do in real time.
Before a social event, it sounds like preparation. What will I say? What if there's a silence? What if I seem awkward? You might rehearse conversations in advance, plan your exit, or decide what topics feel safe.
During the interaction, the voice shifts to monitoring. Am I talking too much? Did that land wrong? They probably think I'm boring. You might smile while simultaneously scanning the other person's face for signs of disinterest. You're in the conversation, but you're also watching yourself be in the conversation.
And afterward, the critic gets louder. Why did I say that? I should have been funnier. They definitely noticed. The replay can last for hours. Sometimes days.
This loop is exhausting. Not because the social situation itself was hard, but because you were doing two things the entire time: participating and performing. One takes energy. Both at once takes everything.
For many people, this inner critic is closely tied to patterns of perfectionism. The standards you hold yourself to in social settings are impossibly high, and the fear of falling short keeps the entire system running.
The gap between performing connection and actually feeling it is one of the loneliest parts of social anxiety.
Post-event rumination
The replay deserves its own section, because for many people with social anxiety, it's the most painful part.
The event is over. You made it through. But instead of relief, your mind starts scanning backward. It pulls out moments, magnifies them, and reinterprets them in the worst possible light.
That thing you said at dinner? You replay it ten times, each version worse than the last. The pause before someone responded? You interpret it as judgment. The way someone looked at you? Evidence that you don't belong.
This kind of overthinking isn't logical, and knowing that doesn't stop it. The loop runs on its own, often intensifying at night when there's nothing else to distract you.
Post-event rumination can make social life feel punishing. Even when the interaction went fine, even when people responded warmly, the internal review process strips away any positive experience and replaces it with doubt.
Over time, this can erode confidence. Not because you're failing socially, but because your mind never lets you register success.
How social anxiety shows up in work and relationships
Social anxiety doesn't stay contained. It reaches into the places that matter most.
At work, it might show up as avoiding meetings, declining presentations, or staying quiet when you have something to contribute. You might spend twice as long on an email because you're worried about how it reads. You might skip the networking event, not because you don't care about your career, but because the thought of small talk with strangers makes your stomach clench.
In relationships, social anxiety can look like people-pleasing. Saying what you think the other person wants to hear instead of what's true. Avoiding conflict because the fear of judgment extends even into close connections. Or keeping people at a distance because the vulnerability of being truly known feels too risky.
Some people with social anxiety have a wide social circle and appear confident. But underneath, they're managing every interaction carefully. Performing warmth. Performing ease. And then going home depleted, wondering why connection feels so hard when they're working so hard at it.
The gap between performing connection and actually feeling it is one of the loneliest parts of social anxiety. And it often goes unnoticed by the people around you, because you've gotten very good at making it look effortless.
The shame underneath
Beneath the monitoring, the rehearsing, and the avoidance, there's often something quieter. Shame.
Not always loud. Not always named. But a deep sense that there's something fundamentally wrong with how you are. That if people really saw you, without the preparation and the performance, they wouldn't want to stay.
Shame is different from embarrassment. Embarrassment says, I did something awkward. Shame says, I am awkward. It's not about a moment. It's about identity.
For many people with social anxiety, this shame started early. Maybe you were criticized for being "too quiet" or "too sensitive." Maybe you were teased or excluded in ways that taught you that visibility was dangerous. Maybe your family environment made it clear that certain parts of you weren't welcome.
These early experiences leave a mark. Not because you're fragile, but because your nervous system learned to associate being seen with being at risk. And that lesson doesn't just go away on its own. It runs in the background, shaping how you move through every social space you enter.
Therapy for social anxiety needs to touch this layer. Not just the behavior. Not just the thoughts. The felt sense of not being safe in the presence of others.
Avoidance and the shrinking world
Avoidance is the quiet engine of social anxiety. It doesn't always look dramatic. Sometimes it's just saying no a little more often. Leaving a little earlier. Staying a little quieter.
But over time, it adds up. The world gets smaller. The things you used to do, even uncomfortably, start falling off the list. You stop going to the thing. You stop reaching out. You stop saying what you actually think.
And the problem with avoidance is that it works in the short term. Staying home does reduce the anxiety. Not going to the party does prevent the post-event spiral. But it also prevents the experiences that could gradually teach your system that it's safe to be seen.
This isn't about pushing yourself harder. It's about understanding the cycle so you can begin to interrupt it with support. Not alone. Not through willpower. Through a relationship where the stakes are low and the safety is real.
How therapy helps with social anxiety
Therapy for social anxiety isn't about learning scripts or forcing yourself into uncomfortable situations. It's about understanding the pattern that runs underneath the fear and gently creating new experiences that shift it.
In individual therapy, we look at what your social anxiety is protecting. Where it started. What beliefs about yourself it's built on. What your nervous system learned about other people and whether it's safe to be seen by them.
We work with the body, because social anxiety isn't just a thinking problem. It lives in the tightness of your chest before a conversation. The flush of heat when attention turns to you. The impulse to disappear that comes before you've even decided whether you want to stay.
And we work relationally. Because anxiety that developed in the context of relationships is most effectively healed in the context of a relationship.
Over time, people often find that the volume of the inner critic turns down. That the post-event replay gets shorter. That they can enter a room and actually be in it, rather than watching themselves from the outside.
This doesn't happen through exposure alone. It happens through the slow, steady experience of being seen by someone who doesn't judge, doesn't push, and doesn't require a performance.
Why relational therapy is different
Most approaches to social anxiety focus on cognitive behavioral strategies. Challenging negative thoughts. Building an exposure hierarchy. Gradually increasing your tolerance for uncomfortable social situations.
Those tools have value. But they often miss the relational core of social anxiety. The part that isn't about thoughts or behaviors, but about what it feels like to be a person in the presence of another person.
Leanne's approach is relational, somatic, and trauma-informed. What that means in practice is that the therapy room itself becomes a place where something new can happen. Not a rehearsal space. Not a training ground. A real relationship where you can practice being honest, being imperfect, being unsure, and discovering that those things don't lead to the rejection your system has been bracing for.
We pay attention to what happens between us in the room. When you pull back. When you perform. When you edit yourself. These aren't things to fix. They're information. And when we notice them together, gently and without judgment, something begins to shift.
Leanne offers both in-person sessions in Kitchener-Waterloo and virtual therapy across Ontario. For some people with social anxiety, starting with virtual sessions feels less exposing. For others, being in the same room matters. Either way, the work meets you where you are.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is completely normal to have questions before reaching out.
No. Shyness is a temperament trait that may cause mild discomfort in new situations but doesn't significantly interfere with your life. Social anxiety is more persistent and pervasive. It involves a deep fear of judgment or rejection that can affect your work, relationships, and daily functioning. The two can overlap, but they're not the same thing.
Yes. Many people with social anxiety appear confident, sociable, and at ease in public. But internally, they're monitoring, rehearsing, and critiquing themselves throughout. The performance is convincing, which is part of why the exhaustion goes unrecognized.
Not in the way you might be imagining. Leanne's approach is not about forcing you into uncomfortable situations. It's about building safety within the therapeutic relationship so that being seen starts to feel less threatening over time. The pace is always yours.
This is one of the most common concerns, and it makes complete sense. Therapy asks you to be seen by another person, which is exactly what social anxiety makes difficult. Leanne understands this and meets you gently. You won't be pushed to share more than you're ready for. The first session is simply a conversation to see if the fit feels right.
Yes. Social anxiety is a pattern, not a permanent trait. With the right support, people often experience significant relief. The inner critic quiets. The avoidance loosens. And connection starts to feel less like a performance and more like something you can actually enjoy.
Yes. Virtual therapy is available across Ontario. Some people with social anxiety prefer to start online, where the environment feels more controlled and less exposing. In-person sessions are also available in Kitchener-Waterloo.
You don't have to keep performing your way through connection
Social anxiety asks so much of you. The preparation. The monitoring. The replay. The quiet shame of feeling like you're too much or not enough, sometimes both at once.
You've been managing this on your own for a long time. And the fact that you've made it work doesn't mean it isn't costing you.
If you're ready to explore what it might feel like to be seen without performing, you can book a free consultation. It's a quiet, unhurried conversation. No pressure. No judgment. Just a chance to see whether this feels like the right space for you.