About

Struggling with Social Anxiety Disorder for most of my life, I didn’t know this mental health disease even existed until I studied it in medical school. In fact, most people who have social anxiety disorder don’t realize that they have it until approximately 10 years (yes you read that correctly…10 years) after they first experience symptoms.

As a medical student, I was surrounded by doctors every day, all of whom have studied Social Anxiety Disorder and were even tested on it during the psychiatry section of their USMLE exams. Yet none of them, not a single one of them, were able to recognize it on me while I was suffering on the outside and screaming for help on the inside.

The Social Anxiety Event

I experienced intense social anxiety moments during my third year of med school almost every day that I was there. Being in front of all the doctors, patients, and med students was tremendously difficult, even when I wasn’t speaking to any of them.

The combination of being observed and judged by attending physicians, residents, patients and their families, other medical students, and even nurses is just a social anxiety disaster waiting to happen.

SAD Events

Two types of SAD events really took me, both leading to the same results:

  • Listening to attendings and residents discuss patients with the students. This led to severe anxiety symptoms in anticipation that I would be asked a question.
  • Presenting my patient(s) to the attendings/residents and other students. Severe anxiety symptoms developed from being observed, and subsequently, questioned in front of everyone about my patients.

The Social Anxiety Symptoms

The onset of heavy blushing made my face appear bright red, only to be complimented by the unrelenting, profuse sweating which would drip off my nose, cheeks, and chin straight to the floor.

But don’t worry because the incredibly loud sound of my heart beat thumping against my chest distracted people for a second or two as they tried to figure out where that sound was coming from.

The brief distraction always comes to an unwelcomed halt as they always realize that it came from my heart trying to hammer its way out of my chest. And with all that anxiety and adrenaline flowing through me, at least I’m able to hide the last major symptom of SAD, which are my trembling hands. I can just stick those right in my pocket until the event has passed. Oh that’s right! That won’t work. I can’t stick my hands in my pockets because I’m holding my notepad and papers for the COPD patient in room 6B that I’m presenting to the attending and residents. Well without hiding my trembling hands, it has now become painfully obvious to them when they see the papers in my left hand shake and the difficulty I have removing the cap off the pen in my right hand. I’ve since learned to use only click pens to make things less noticeable.

Well now, it looks like my face is bright red, I’m drowning in sweat, my heart is beating out of my chest, and my hands decided to have an earthquake with a rating of 6.5 on the Richter scale. Everyone is now looking at me. Everyone! The hard-ass attendings, the residents, and even the other medical students all have something to say. At least things can’t get any worse right? Wrong! All four of my symptoms double, yes double, in intensity when someone calls attention to them.

People calling attention to my symptoms

Doctor A: “Why are you sweating? You nervous?”

Me: “No, I’m fine. Sometimes I get like this. I’m fine though” (I’m really not fine)

Doctor B: “Tell us what your treatment plan is for this patient. Then go wash yourself off. Don’t come in to the patient’s room looking like that. That’s disgusting. “

Me: “I understand.”

Med Student: “Bro, it looks like you just ran a marathon on a 105 degree day.”

Me: “Thanks”… I then walk away, go to the bathroom, lock the door, cover the drain cap with my plastic hospital ID badge, turn on the cold water faucet until the sink fills, and soak my face in it until my back starts to hurt from bending too long.

The night time effects

These events happened multiple times per week causing extreme discomfort for me every time. At night time is usually when I would get the most studying done, and since I study alone, I don’t have to worry about anxiety, right? Wrong again! Because of the frequent social anxiety trauma’s I was experiencing each day, I couldn’t focus on my work. I kept thinking about the events of that day and the days before. All that was passing through my mind was the look people were giving me, or the things they said to me, or what they now think of me. It was becoming harder and harder to study, to memorize, to answer practice questions correctly, to comprehend, etc… Social Anxiety Disorder was causing me to lose focus on studying, thus making me less prepared for my upcoming exams.

The morning effects

With SAD, each morning I woke up early to get ready for the day I was unable to actually get up and out of bed. I was paralyzed in bed for a few moments because I didn’t know if this day would bring about another social anxiety trauma. I would always ask myself, “is today a social anxiety day?” Or, “could today’s trauma be worse than yesterday’s? If it is, what will people say about me?” I hated that feeling of worry, fear, and discomfort each morning. I couldn’t tolerate it and I always ended up feeling helpless. As I’m driving to the hospital, I’d be listening to songs that would help change my mindset from fear to happy. In fact, I would listen to Pharrell Williams’, “Happy” while driving to the hospital each day. It was a way for me to psych myself out of fear and into the “don’t worry about it…it’s going to be okay” mindset. Unfortunately however, that didn’t work as SAD continued to find me.

The Decision

Despite all the medicine I received from doctors and behavioral therapists during my time in medical school, I didn’t find any relief. This led to my painful (often regrettable) decision to discontinue medical school during my third year, leaving me with a ton of unused potential, a ton of medical knowledge, and even more so, an incredibly high student loan debt.

I quit the one thing I’ve wanted to do more than anything in the world because of my social anxiety. This is what Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) can do to a person. Now that I have experienced all those exhaustingly oppressive symptoms, I now make the calculated choices to avoid anxiety provoking situations, like gathering in groups with people, speaking with attractive women, striking up a conversation with people of authority (like my supervisors), dancing (I’m awful at that anyway so at least that works out well for me), playing basketball in front of crowds, being on camera, or doing anything that may call attention to myself.

Why Red Face Cinema

The point of Red Face Cinema is to draw awareness to Social Anxiety Disorder by putting movie stars in the spotlight with hypothetical “what if they had SAD” scenarios. I was surrounded by doctors every day, all of whom have studied Social Anxiety Disorder and were even tested on it during the psychiatry section of their USMLE exams. Yet none of them, not a single one of them, were able to recognize it on me while I was suffering on the outside and screaming for help on the inside. If doctors weren’t able to identify it with my painfully obvious symptoms, then I’m sure most people can’t either. This means that there isn’t enough awareness of SAD and the hope is that Red Face Cinema can help change that.