Insert witty post title here

Now that I’ve started, it’s hard to keep going. Hard to find something worthwhile to say. Ever harder to think of decent reason to say it. Is there a point to this activity? Possibly I’m just wallowing in my own self pity and nobody cares. That’s fair enough. Why should any body care? What am I to anyone else. I’m nobody important. There’s no reason to assume that my particular brand of misery is of more pressing importance than somebody else’s. I mean, I’m doing OK, at the moment. I’m keeping it together. I’m not crying myself to sleep or slicing myself up with razor blades. I’m not contemplating suicide.

So I really can’t complain.

In other news, I’m thinking of buying myself a pot plant. Preferably a Venus fly trap, but a cactus would also be nice.

Hello universe, it's me, Sayle*

*Sayle Smith is a pseudonym; I guess that’s pretty obvious. I feel like it’s a necessity if this exercise is to work.

The basics. I’m a 21-year-old student living in Melbourne Australia. I have social anxiety. The fact that I am socially anxious is also the very thing that makes it hard to get help. I don’t know if blogging here will help, but I’m really at a loose end right now. This is a space for me to vent, chew things over, and maybe meet people in a similar situation.

I’ve suffered from SA for years. It’s hard to say when it began. I was a shy kid, then an awkward teen. I only discovered that social anxiety even existed about two years ago, just after I stared university. I typed the word ‘shyness’ into Google and, viola, there it was: like a missing puzzle piece, if I may be so clichéd. Since then I’ve seen a psychologist (although I’m not at the moment), suffered a bout of mild depression, and for six months was on anti-depressants.

At the moment I’m doing better than I was. I have a job, I’ve managed to pass all my classes thus far, and I don’t spend every minute of the day berating myself. But I’m still struggling. Dealing with people is a battle: I’m not great at small talk and I’m worse at making friends. I really don’t have anyone to talk to at this point. I feel like this is a now or never moment. In a year I’ll graduate, and go out into the world, and there are so many things I want to do, things that I know SA is going to get in the way of.

I’m going to work through all that shit here. I hope this won’t descend too far into narcissistic naval-grazing self-pitying poor-me-ing, but I can promise nothing.