Feeling like a fish out of water with social anxiety

Do you have a friend or family member who avoids social situations, to the extent that you’ve given up inviting them out? They could be suffering from social anxiety, says Elizabeth O’Neill as it affects one in seven Irish people

WHEN I was six, my parents took my sister, Laura and I to a drafty church hall along the seafront. It was whatever passed for a Billie Barry-style dance class in 1980s Greystones. I loved the Billie Barry stage school children on the Late Late Toy Show. I wanted to be like them, but fear, anxiety and tears had me rooted to the spot, as Laura danced over to the children waiting in their tutus.

I remember my parents cajoling me and I felt their exasperation. I was dealing with double reproof, because dad was off work, having broken his leg doing the hucklebuck at a cousin’s wedding. What I remember most was the push and pull of wanting to evaporate and of desperately wanting to join in. Wanting that one little thing that would make me forget myself. What that was I didn’t know, neither did my parents. It was pattern that repeated for years.