Slightly gross so this is your warning.
Basically I have pretty bad social anxiety and it's a very specific problem that I get somatic symptoms from (that aren't real but feel very real) like for example the feeling I really need to pee or that it's so bad I will pee my pants or worst case that I get the feeling I already peed my pants. Weirdest part is that I never actually peed my pants but I did have some problems with bladder issues last year that I think triggered this fear. Everytime I'm in public I search for bathrooms, everytime I go to a new environment it's worse, buses are the worst because I fear that the movement will cause an accident. I also know it's completely made up by my mind, because as soon as I start getting anxious about other people it happens then as soon as I'm home again it's gone. I often have to get off buses early to walk home instead or leave lectures. The more people are around the worse I feel, I plan what time I take buses on my best guesses on when they will be emptiest, I don't take buses for more than a 10min ride unless I truly have too(and if I really do I wait until an mostly empty bus comes along). This is really fucking up my social life and just life in general it's as if anytime there are people around I become anxious and my brain kickstarts the feeling of needing to pee.
I have been trying to do exposure therapy on myself for the past few months with a little improvement but my biggest issue right now is if I can switch uni or not.
Basically I have 2 choices, firstly I stay at my uni, it's a smaller university and I know the campus, I don't have many friends but I do like the school and the city is medium big. Housing is easy and affordable.
my other option is moving university to a more prestigious one in a large city. I don't know the campus, housing is expensive. One of the big problems is that one of the people heavily involved in student life there is an ex best friend of mine that hates me after a falling out.
Moving to a big city seems like a bad idea for my social anxiety but it might also be exposure therapy?
I also already have the fear that people hate me and then knowing that a very well known person on campus probably tells people about me in a negative way might put me over the edge.
and I do like the school I'm at now a lot so the benefit of the other one is mostly the name and the fact that there might be lots of fun things to do in such a big city compared to where I'm at (but also I might not be able to participate in the fun things due to my social anxiety). I'm also already worried about public transport since it will be a lot more busy and I really don't know if I can cope with that.
If you read all of this: first of all thank you, and secondly, what do you think? what would you do in this situation? How do you deal with social anxiety(especially in a big city)? Am I letting social anxiety controll my life or will it actually be torture if I move?
Basically I have pretty bad social anxiety and it's a very specific problem that I get somatic symptoms from (that aren't real but feel very real) like for example the feeling I really need to pee or that it's so bad I will pee my pants or worst case that I get the feeling I already peed my pants. Weirdest part is that I never actually peed my pants but I did have some problems with bladder issues last year that I think triggered this fear. Everytime I'm in public I search for bathrooms, everytime I go to a new environment it's worse, buses are the worst because I fear that the movement will cause an accident. I also know it's completely made up by my mind, because as soon as I start getting anxious about other people it happens then as soon as I'm home again it's gone. I often have to get off buses early to walk home instead or leave lectures. The more people are around the worse I feel, I plan what time I take buses on my best guesses on when they will be emptiest, I don't take buses for more than a 10min ride unless I truly have too(and if I really do I wait until an mostly empty bus comes along). This is really fucking up my social life and just life in general it's as if anytime there are people around I become anxious and my brain kickstarts the feeling of needing to pee.
I have been trying to do exposure therapy on myself for the past few months with a little improvement but my biggest issue right now is if I can switch uni or not.
Basically I have 2 choices, firstly I stay at my uni, it's a smaller university and I know the campus, I don't have many friends but I do like the school and the city is medium big. Housing is easy and affordable.
my other option is moving university to a more prestigious one in a large city. I don't know the campus, housing is expensive. One of the big problems is that one of the people heavily involved in student life there is an ex best friend of mine that hates me after a falling out.
Moving to a big city seems like a bad idea for my social anxiety but it might also be exposure therapy?
I also already have the fear that people hate me and then knowing that a very well known person on campus probably tells people about me in a negative way might put me over the edge.
and I do like the school I'm at now a lot so the benefit of the other one is mostly the name and the fact that there might be lots of fun things to do in such a big city compared to where I'm at (but also I might not be able to participate in the fun things due to my social anxiety). I'm also already worried about public transport since it will be a lot more busy and I really don't know if I can cope with that.
If you read all of this: first of all thank you, and secondly, what do you think? what would you do in this situation? How do you deal with social anxiety(especially in a big city)? Am I letting social anxiety controll my life or will it actually be torture if I move?
