As a child in grade school I was terrified of what other people thought of me. To a certain degree, I still am. There were so many variables and things that could go wrong and I thought every encounter I had with other children must be perfect, because I couldn’t bear the thought of other people not understanding what I was saying or meaning. I would constantly have these dreams that my teeth would fall out or they were rotting out of my skull. Sometimes my tongue would fall out as well, or my whole lower half of my face would be in some horrific accident and I would no longer be able to speak or emote anything. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that those dreams are common among people who have high social anxiety. The link being that, your mouth and teeth are essential to effective communication. If you dream that you are losing these parts of your body, then you are afraid that these parts of your body are failing you, or are worthless.

My teen years, as one could guess, were worse. It’s also when I learned that my mental suffering had a name: ADHD. I was horrible in class and doing homework, but my test taking abilities showed that I knew the subject matter. I was interested in what I was learning, but it was tremendously hard for me to concentrate on a task for school once I got home and got distracted by the million of other things I could be doing. A lot of great advancement has been made in the awareness of this affliction, which makes me over the moon happy. I just wish more people knew about it when I was going to school.

Many children who suffer from ADD/ADHD also suffer from depression, and anxiety. It’s called a co-morbidity. It may go without saying that many children suffer from certain social anxieties. They suffer alone, without anybody to connect with.

It breaks my heart because I know what they are going through. I went through what they are going through. These are smart, loving, wonderful kids whose main fear, in some cruel twist of irony, is being rejected. So I did something about it. I wrote a book!

It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and I am so happy that I have done it. With this book I feel like I can help parents help their children tackle the issue head on. It has huge pictures of cute pets and a cute and funny and most importantly easy story to follow. It is meant to address the issue early on in childhood in the 6 – 10 range. That way parents have a huge amount of lead time to deal with the issue and form healthy coping mechanisms with their child.

My main reason for writing this particular bog is to see what everyone thinks about social anxiety. Maybe some of you guys out there have similar stories that you would like to share. I would love to hear all about them as I am putting together more books on the subject. I plan on having a whole series of books tackling some of the common problems children have today. If you would like to view or buy the book its here

Or here

So please tell me a story about yourself when you were a child and what kind of advice you wished you were given. Or tell me, as a parent, what kind of book you wish was out there that you could go through with your child to teach them something, or help them through a difficulty. Your input is coveted. Thanks for reading.