“… What you’ve been suffering from is very severe social anxiety…”

This was October 2014, my second year at Cambridge. The moment is seared into my memory; perched on a sofa, tears streaming down my face, I could hardly breathe.

The irony was that I already had a good idea of what I was suffering from. Online tests assess the level and extent of your anxiety; I had taken many several times, hoping the outcome would change, but the message at the end was always the same. It told me to seek help immediately.

It still took a good three years to progress from these tests to sitting in a room with a counsellor, wondering how the hell I was going to explain all this ‘stuff’ I felt. But the moment she said those words, everything changed.

Social anxiety is a disorder. It is a real and genuine thing.

As someone who suffers from it, I can tell you that you will feel incredibly alone and isolated. You think the most irrational thoughts, feel the most irrational feelings and are constantly at war with yourself. You believe that nobody else could suffer from such an irrational and stupid thing. To seek help for that which you do your utmost to try and run away from is extremely difficult. Asking for help is the first step, but always the hardest; you’re finally acknowledging the truth.

I imagine some readers are wondering what social anxiety is. It’s difficult to describe because it has been a part of my life for so long. I am naturally an introvert, but extroverts suffer from it too. Like many mental health issues, what you experience, how you conceptualise it and attempt to rationalise it, is incredibly personal and individual.

At school, I thought I was just shy. But progressing through secondary school this ‘shyness’ morphed into something incredibly sinister. By sixth form, it had pretty much taken over my life. I could barely function, plagued with worry and fear; answers to teachers’ questions were incoherent mumbles, or just excruciating silence.

I vividly remember walking down the corridor and someone saying hello to me. I literally could not say anything; my heart was pounding, head buzzing, sweat pouring down my back, hands clammy; I felt burning hot, I had buzzing in my ears and I couldn’t breathe.

It kept happening. Lessons involving student presentations were unbearable. I did my best to skip them but couldn’t avoid them all. Standing up in front of even a small group resulted in more intense symptoms. I didn’t realise at the time, but I know now that I was suffering from panic attacks.

I used to hate being stared at. When walking down a street I constantly worried that people were looking at me funny. The anxiety became so intense that two strangers could be walking past and one might be laughing. My immediate thought was: 'they must be laughing at me'. So irrational right? Of course, and the SAD sufferer knows this. I know that they are not laughing at me, they probably haven’t even noticed me, but you can’t help it.

Having to use a phone caused genuine fear, often taking hours to build up the courage to make a call and having to use a pre-prepared script to prevent myself getting too worked up.

Suffers of SAD tend to be hyper-sensitive to criticism, from others and themselves. One small comment about something I had said or done, often made in passing or jest, can affect me for weeks, months, even years. Trapped in a cycle of extremely low self-esteem and self-disgust, it’s often impossible to relate how you really feel.

Progression since school means I can now generally hold a conversation with little external manifestation of anxiety. But, internally, worry and nervousness crash and collide, filling my head with irrational thoughts. Some days it’s easier to just stay in bed and not face the world.

In my first year at university I tried hard to change, deliberately putting myself in situations that I used to avoid. But, struggling to maintain the mask, I became dependent on alcohol. It numbed the fear and anxiety, silencing the constant chatter of nervous worry. When you’re so drunk that you can’t even remember who you are, everything else melts away. But if a social event lacked alcohol I became incredibly nervous about going. Alcohol had become necessary for me to be able to ‘function normally’. ‘It had given a taste of what life could be like without the anxiety and it was this I so desperately craved.

New friendships, honesty and a great deal of soul-searching led me to finally ask for help. If the anxiety didn’t destroy me then the alcohol would. Actually dealing with my social anxiety, being able to define it, talk and write about it; to hold it up and acknowledge that it will always be a part of my life but will no longer define it, gives me strength. It hasn’t gone; I still struggle, but I hope that in time it will become less and less apparent in my life. When I think back to my time at school compared to how I am now, I can see how different I am. To find peace in life, you have to live it and embrace everything, even those things you fear the most.