Roomfuls of Scary People

 Rooms full of people I’m acquainted with or that sorta know me - those are the ones that scare me the most. As someone who has battled with anxiety that affects several aspects of my life, the social anxiety is one that, while I’ve come measurably far in, I still face on a very regular basis and continues to cause that literal stomach knot to drop on in for those all-to-frequent visits. 

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“Why Michael, you’re a crazy extrovert with enough crackhead energy to power a small house for a not insignificant amount of time! Aren’t rooms full of people where you come away from most alive?”, you might ask. Theoretically, yes, we extroverts are the ones that get together in groups, seduce the introverts into joining, and then bleed them of their energy so that we leave full and overflowing and the introverts leave drained and in desperate need of their “me time”. (Inspiration for whatever that is that I just wrote is credited to Lani Fahnestock, although after what I did to butcher her comment that inspired it, she probably wants nothing to do with it😂)

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Ok, ok, I’m painting us introverts like a bunch of villains, but social dynamics between extreme introverts and reserved introverts are fascinating, especially to someone like me who, had I pursued a college degree, would have heavily considered a minor in sociology. I mean, I just spent nearly 12 hours roadtripping, not to mention the most of the weekend, with a friend of mine who is practically the opposite of me personality-wise in most ways, so we hashed it out on the way home - I was full, overflowing, quite sad the weekend was over, and he was drained, wanted desperately for me to shut up so he could sleep, and couldn’t wait to get home so he could recharge.

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But, as is the usual case with my writing/story-telling, I’m going down a rabbit trail that, the deeper I get into it, the less it seems to correlate with my overall point, so let's pull swiftly back to “the point”, shall we? So yeah, social anxiety - here’s a recent experience of mine that I feel perfectly illustrates the irrationality that plays out on occasion for me. Last week (or at the time of writing this specific paragraph, it was last week), I had the choice to go to one of those rooms full of people I kinda know by myself. I had originally done my best to try to recruit some good friends to go along with me, knowing that doing so would most likely give me a “social buffer” which keeps the anxiety at bay (listen, that makes me sound like a selfish narcissist - I assure you that I’m happy just to spend time with the people I love, one of my primary love languages being quality time and all; them being present and alleviating my every-present anxiety is just a welcome bonus). Alas, hectic summer schedules are the norm these days, and I wound up with the decision to either go at it all by myself or stay home.

It was honestly a pretty easy choice, though. I mean, given the work that God has been doing in my heart over the past few months, I’m not one for passing up moments where I can put my full effort into worship; Not to mention, hear the stories of how God has worked in the lives of other young people (there’s been a theme of late with me hearing other young people’s God-stories and Him speaking to me through them, and I, for one, am a huge fan of this journey!!!). So yeah, there I was, sitting in Cafe 1-8 at 7pm, the time at which I was supposed to actually be at the church for the worship night, sipping my decaf (sacrifices must be made to placate the otherwise rampant anxiety-induced heart racing caused by the addition of caffeine to this scenario) iced mocha, reading my new book, waiting impatiently for my food that came waaayyy later than I was anticipating, and overthinking the absolute crap out of what I would do and how I would act in this churchful of young people I was planning to go to.

You see, as I mentioned before, rooms full of acquaintances are one of my greatest fears. Heights? Yeah, I’ve ziplined the longest zipline in the western hemisphere and stood on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher & Sliabh Liag Cliffs in Ireland. Snakes? Those were a daily occurrence in Africa - even got to kill a green mamba myself while there. Spiders? Those can literally be squished with the nearest blunt object with relative ease. But people I sorta know - yeah, for some reason that’s a trigger. It goes a bit deeper than that. You see, as a card-carrying member of the anxiety club, one thing I find myself struggling with a lot that’s honestly rather unhealthy is living up to the imaginary expectations people have of me that I project onto said people. Yeah, that complicated sentence is the simplest way I can put it shortly.

Basically, say you were part of the crowd of acquaintances or friends in one of these roomfuls. Because you sorta know who I am and I sorta know who you are, rather than being settled only in the fact that I should come say “hey” if I get the chance, my brain short-circuits and I get completely caught up in overthinking what your expectations might be of me, the fact that I’ve changed dramatically over the past few years since we hypothetically met, how those changes may not be factored into the expectations you have of me, and how you might overlook the attempts to influence healthy change in my life and instead expect me to be the immature, out-of-place weird nerd I was back then. I mean, to be fair, I’m still an immature, out-of-place weird nerd now, but at least I have a modest grasp on social skills these days, so I can trick you into liking me regardless of my innumerable quirks. (I’m kinda on what some might consider a self-sabotaging spree here, but I assure you, one of the things I learned in those hypothetical years since we met was to take pride in my uniqueness. But that’s an entirely different tangent - just felt the need to clarify.)

And that last paragraph is only the tip of the ice-berg. That weird short-circuit that my brain does that kicks it into a frenzied mode of overthinking causes my mind to race over an absolute commotion of speculative problems that might somehow result in my leaving the room, building, or what-have-you having not only made zero friends but actually somehow having managed to make several, if not an entire roomful of enemies. It’s honestly ridiculous, when spelling it out like this, that I believe this BS, and thankfully, I had the brief moment of sanity last week while sitting deep in the raging river of overthought at the coffee shop to grab my journal and furiously spell out, at least to a brief degree, the fears I could recognize and the irrationality, unbiblical, or ungodly natures of them. That helped to quell the angst a little, but I still felt it as I, nearly 30 minutes later when I finally had polished off my food and found my way to the church, paused at the door before walking in.

But I did. I carefully opened the door and walked in, aware of the painful truth that I was 40 minutes late. I was relieved, though, to hear singing. At least I could creep into the back while everyone was distracted by the worship, right!? Well, I was met with a massive wave of relief when I glanced over the crowd and realized that, even though a huge majority of these folks were exactly as I feared, those acquaintances that scare the sanity out of me, my band of absolute gems I am proud to call my cousins sat in the back row. So I slipped on in, and God allowed the spirit of worship to quickly replace the spirit of anxiety I had been battling and man alive, did my night change for the better.

To wrap this up, since my main reason for even beginning to write this in the first place was to give some sort of futile peek into one of many aspects of my battle with anxiety and I feel that I’ve done that, at least to some degree, the night ended with me feeling incredibly full. Full of awe at the continual working of God in the hearts of the young people of Lancaster that not too long ago I found myself struggling to keep hope for. It’s a strange feeling to realize that God is proving your 16-year-old self {who had stepped back into the world of comfortable Lancaster Mennonitism and had been incredibly disappointed at the lack of missions awareness, broadened worldview, and deep godly passion in the youth around him} wrong in the most seemingly dramatic of ways. I felt full of energy I got from reconnecting with old friends, meeting some new ones, and overall, I stepped out of the church door that 3 hours earlier I had approached with immense trepidation with the excitement and energy of a 5 year old. I literally went home, couldn’t sleep, and proceeded to blast my roommates eardrums with my raucous singing and guitar playing for a half hour to make some lame attempt at wearing down the energy I had left with. Eventually I went to sleep, anxiety the furthest thing from my mind. At least for the time being.

Our God Is So Good!!!

-Michael Stoltzfus, 2021