My name is Kyle Mitchell and that picture you see is me in the worst time of my life…high school. High school was the time that I had to fully face my social anxiety.
I grew up going to a small private school where my social anxiety was manageable. I had a small group of friends that I felt comfortable enough around to where my social anxiety wasn’t in control. When I was outside my circle of friends, my social anxiety would make me suffer. I would constantly be thinking and believing that the people around me were constantly judging me. This impacted me in things most of us do daily like blowing my nose in class, raising my hand, how I talked, what I wore to school, and even how I walked!...along with many other things. Little did I know that my time in my private school was only a small taste of my social anxiety.
Going into my sophomore year of high school, my parents could no longer afford to send me to private school. I transferred to a very large public school to start my school year. To provide some context on how big of a switch this was for me, my small private school had about 200 students total in the high school and the school I transferred to had about 1,600 students in high school. This was a MAJOR culture shock for me. This is when my social anxiety smacked me in the face and I was not ready for it in the slightest. new
On my first day of school, I learned that the bus dropped me off at school 40 minutes before my first class even started. I had no idea what to do for those 40 long minutes. I knew no one, I had never been to a public school before, and I didn’t want to sit down somewhere by myself because of the fear of being judged by those around me. I had to think quickly on my feet to come up with a plan, and I did. My plan was to blend in with the other students by walking the halls in circles until class started. With so many students in the school, it was easy to blend in without anyone noticing that I was walking in circles over and over...until one day someone noticed.
Weeks later, I walked onto my bus to head home when someone on the bus called me out in front of the whole bus and asked why I walked the halls in circles every morning. I was absolutely humiliated and felt an overwhelming feeling of shame. The next morning at school I knew I couldn’t walk the halls any longer. Instead, I went into the bathroom stall and waited for the bell to ring. While I was waiting, I cried the entire time and had an overflow of negative thoughts about myself like: “What’s wrong with you, Kyle?” “Why can’t you make friends?” “Why are you such a loser?” “Why can’t you be normal like everyone else?” “Why is this so hard for you?”
After struggling with these thoughts for a long time, I finally broke down and sought help. I talked to my parents and my school counselor about what was going on. I felt such a relief from doing this as I was finally able to release my emotions from inside that I had been holding on to for so long! This didn’t rid my social anxiety but it helped me get through high school and onto college.
I was still struggling in college and wasn’t sure what to do until one day I walked into my apartment and felt something (I believe it was God) speak to me, “Kyle, you can’t live the rest of your life feeling like this. You have to do something about it because it isn’t going to go away by itself. Stop taking pity on yourself and DO SOMETHING about it!” When I heard that, it was like a light bulb clicked on. I was ready to take action on my social anxiety and I committed to myself that I would do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING possible to take back control from my social anxiety.
I started to do tons of research online, watched videos, and I read articles to help me beat my social anxiety. Some of it was good and some of it was bad. I spent a long time doing trial and error with different strategies before I finally created and used my 3 step process that helped me take control of my social anxiety!
Now, I am on a mission to help 1 million teens go from socially anxious to socially confident.
Are you in on the mission?
