I've had severe social anxiety for the bulk of my life. I've gone through periods of replacing it with a fundamentally dissociative awareness. The best I can describe it is being fully submerged in the belief that life is a dream, and nothing that happens actually matters.

It's tough, but what actually works for me now, is giving other people the respect and privacy they need, by not thinking about how they think. You'd be surprised how much extra thinking time you have for everything else just by cutting your thoughts off at that line.

Still, there are no rules yet for empathy, and my mind can still get panicky in crowds, and there is the belief that I will be perpetually socially naive and subject to social manipulation. But I think it's better than hiding in the corner of a room, staring at the floor, maybe.

I do not really like social media. I like interesting conversations that stimulate me intellectually.