Social anxiety can manifest in different ways: blushing, sweating, shaky voice, jitters, OCD, and selective mutism (SM) to name a few.

I find that social anxiety can impact me at times, especially when I am tired and weak. Anxiety takes over when I can’t think – I can’t make decisions, I can’t manage daily life. It’s frustrating. And important to understand of myself.

For those with SM, when social anxiety kicks in, their vocal chords lock up, making it difficult or impossible to speak.

If you’ve watched the Big Bang Theory, you likely are familiar with Raj’s problem talking to women. That’s selective mutism (SM).

One of my daughters has this problem – she works hard to overcome it, but it still takes a lot of effort to speak in most situations.

If you know someone who is spoken of as being quiet, shy, a wallflower, doesn’t speak much, is soft spoken, etc, consider they might have social anxiety/selective mutism.

You can learn more about selective mutism at the link below:

https://www.social-anxiety.com/clinical-interviews/selective-mutism