Episkevology
Social anxiety isn’t a personal flaw. It’s the nervous system recognizing that the self has been turned into the pledge — the thing a system offers up to keep itself stable. When your presence, difference, or clarity has historically been used as the buffer for other people’s discomfort, the body learns the pattern. It remembers being positioned as collateral.
So when you enter a social space, the body isn’t afraid of people. It’s anticipating the moment you’ll be traded again — the moment your authenticity becomes the cost of group harmony. What gets labeled “anxiety” is often the organism refusing to be currency. It’s a boundary, not a malfunction.
Naming the pattern dissolves the contract. Once you can articulate that the self was made into the pledge, the nervous system is no longer alone in holding the truth. Language returns you to yourself. The pledge is released.
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