Social anxiety is like a fake nametag that you put on at a silly party. Instead of Peter, your name is now Pipi. People would get a big laugh or two, and the nametag is supposed to come off, but for some reason, no matter how much you scratch it after the party, only bits of paper come off, and the dark marker stain seeps deep into your chest. You laugh for a while, saying you are actually Peter.

After five, ten, or even twenty years, your name is still Pipi. Eventually, you start doubting yourself — wondering if you were Pipi all along — and people get pissed, telling you to stop acting like Peter.

Social anxiety sucks because it’s fake. The symptom doesn’t define who you are, yet it stays with you for so long to mess with your brain. It drains your energy when you’re around people — not because the number of people correlates to the anxiety level, but because your brain perceives them as the number of threats, triggering a nonstop fight-or-flight response.

The cure for social anxiety isn’t being told to “shake it off” or “be more confident.” The real cure for anxiety is understanding that the world will take advantage of that fake nametag of yours until you take it off yourself — by experiencing unbearable stress that finally forces your brain to let that nametag go.

However, too many years have already shaped you as Pipi — and that’s why social anxiety sucks.