Social Anxiety Can Be Contagious
By: Bill Bishop
Tags: Phobia, Presentations, Public Speaking, Glossophobia, Anxiety Disorder

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

I have struggled with social anxiety for most of my life, beginning when I was a teenager in high school. The trigger is most often public speaking. In high-school French class I would have panic attacks when I sensed I would be asked to speak French. If the oral was scheduled and I had time for my imagination to create the worst possible outcomes, I would not be able to sleep and become desperate for ways to avoid the fully imagined pending disaster. Eventually it became so debilitating, the French teacher, Mrs. Dompierre, allowed me to come into her classroom during noon hour and “perform” my orals in front of just her. This happened for my last two years of high school, the same and only French teacher for both grades, so we kept the arrangement until I graduated. I was relieved and suffered fewer panic attacks, but as often happens with social anxiety when you avoid anxiety provoking situations it gets worse — because avoidance feels so good. By the time I entered university the anxiety was off the chart. As a sufferer of social anxiety, I expelled my dream of becoming a history teacher and studied computer science instead — because it involved talking to a machine, not people. Or so I thought.

Once my career started, I was still expected to public speak — that is what is expected of white-collar professionals. You start by going to regular status meetings and when it was your turn, you spoke and gave a status update. These were pure torture for me, and I struggled mightily before and during the meetings. I was ok one-on-one, but technology is often done by teams and everyone needed to know your status, not just your boss.

I knew I could not continue this way and I began looking for solutions, including appointments with a psychologist. And it was during these sessions I learned social anxiety is contagious.

I only had four sessions with this psychologist because I was moving to another city. During the first couple of sessions, I realized that this person never really understood a phobia of public speaking. He was relatively young, and this was during an earlier time when not as many people as today reached out for professional help for a phobia of public speaking. Most people seemed to just to avoid any type of public speaking, like my two brothers who took on jobs in a tire factory.

During the second session the phycologist started asking me questions about how I felt when I was asked to public speak. I explained to him in detail all the symptoms I experienced in anticipation of having to public speak. Then, as can be expected, he started asking about my thoughts which would lead to the sensations that would often result in a full-blown panic attack.

(Keep in mind I could have a panic attack if the person in the cubicle next to me was asked to prepare and deliver a presentation. I imagined death row inmates may have similar reactions when it is time for a fellow inmate to go meet his maker.)

So I listed off a number of my thoughts — I am not capable; I will embarrass myself; I do not know what I am doing; everyone else is better than me at the job and public speaking; why am I the only one who suffers from this phobia; how can I get out of it — I feel trapped; I will lose my job; I will go crazy; nobody wants to listen to me; and why am I feeling so anxious — I do not understand what is happening to me.

As I spouted all of this mental angst, I noticed the psychologist was paying keen attention to what I was saying. I thought, good, he is getting it and will be able to help. But I also eventually noticed some bewilderment in his face as I was talking. So, I did what I always did when I was opening up about my worst fear to someone else — I asked him if he ever had these thoughts. He replied, “No.” I thought well maybe he has never had to public speak, so I asked him if he had occasion to public speak? He said “Yes, I teach a class at the university on Monday evenings.” So, I asked him, does it ever bother you to stand in front of a class and public speak. Again, he said “No, I never really thought about it that way.”

I thought, man, are you ever lucky because I am the exact opposite. How do I get to be like you when asked to public speak? And why am I cursed with his affliction and you are not. The session ended and then I had disappointing thoughts — he is a psychologist, but does he understand enough to help me.

At the next session the following week, the psychologist seemed very excited to see me as we sat down in his office. He wanted to tell me something, something that happened to him. He told me that as he was walking to the building on the university campus to teach his Monday evening class, he unconsciously started having the same thoughts that I had described to him in our previous session. I do not know what doubts or even brain wiring that caused those thoughts to latch in his head, but he soon found himself in the same black abyss that those same thoughts took me, and he was having a panic attack. He told me he found himself on that cool, dark evening pressed up against the brick wall outside of the building trying desperately to get himself back under control so he could continue inside and meet his obligation to teach. He managed to get through the class, but then something quite oddly ironic occurred — he was worried about it happening again and he wanted to know what, if anything, helped me. The patient, me, had, even momentarily, become the clinician. And so, we spent the remainder of the session with me explaining what I had tried, and what seemed to help and what was no help at all.

After the session I had mixed feelings about whether the psychologist could help me or not. On the upside his thoughts and the resulting panic attack gave him a deeper understanding of the issue I was facing. However, he was now faced with trying to handle the same issue for himself and apparently was relying on me — at least partially — to offer some potential beneficial insight.

We had one more session before I moved to the new city and it was mostly a discussion around what tools, methods and approaches could help someone who has a severe phobia of public speaking.

It is now twenty-five years since I had those four sessions during the summer of 1997. When I reflect back, I realize on some level the psychologist, at least for a short period of time, “caught” my specific phobia of public speaking. I wonder if it only happened to him just that once or did it become a longer-term issue?

Regardless I was detailed enough in describing my anxious thoughts and the omnipresent associated feelings to him that it somehow resonated in his psyche, his mind. I now felt I had to be careful the next time I ever opened up to anyone about my anxiety disorder because I was, apparently, contagious and someone could catch it from me.

And if you feel susceptible to having anxiety, especially a phobia of public speaking, you may not want to come near me.