I don't understand social awkwardness/anxiety?

yeah

It gets tiresome when I see people saying things like 'I've had counselling for two years and I'm on X medication and have Y many doctors appointments, but I still can't do (whatever social task) after all this time. I'm really sad and isolated and I don't have any friends and I don't know what to do'.

Obviously a paraphrase but that's the gist of some of the things on here. It's pretty obvious if they carry on the way they are then nothing is ever going to get better for them. A lot of them don't seem to be making any effort and expect the medication and counselling to be magically fixing their lives, without them having to do anything themselves.

You began by saying that you aren't arrogant enough to underappreciate these fears but that is precisely what you have done. It's incredibly easy to lambast people for succumbing to intense fears like these without having experienced them yourself, especially if they are on a disorder level. Best thing is really to suppress judgements and keep your mouth firmly shut about issues you don't understand or you risk being mistaken for a Daily Express columnist.

That's not what I've done at all. I said I'm not arrogant enough to think it doesn't exist because I don't understand it. Of course I have under-appreciated these fears, because I do not understand them, but I didn't say it doesn't happen or they are not suffering. I gave my (ignorant) perspective on it of what I see, and I asked for people to tell me where I am wrong, which I am very willing to accept and learn from.

I did not ask this question so people like you could attack me and do the typical TSR thing of comparing a post to a crappy newspaper and getting a lot of rep for making a witty comment.

The irrational part. It just doesn't make sense to me that people cannot think that they are being so irrational that it is possible for them to change if they really try.

Many people wo suffer from tese conditions dont understand tem eiter, teyre not simple.

i damaed my keyboard so letters are missin

Because as anyone with even the most elementary understanding of mental health understands, desire and willpower are very often not enough to override malfunctions in the most complex object the human race is aware of in the universe.

When I used to be a naive little kid, whatever I spoke gave people the following impression: "wtf is he babbling on about?"

Once I became aware of that I stopped talking.

To be fair, a lot of what you've said has come across as quite inconsiderate. I think it's good that you're trying to understand SA but you could have definitely handled it in a completely different way. You've implied that people with SA are at fault and that's simply not the case. Mental illness is a delicate topic and you could have handled it with more sensitivity. That's all.

Is there a particular reason why you didn't address the message I quoted you with? It looks like you're embarrassed about your cliché TSR newspaper comparison. You got 2 reps, well done.

You haven't replied to a couple of my posts to you..so...

Is there a particular reason why you didn't address the message I quoted you with? It looks like you're embarrassed about your cliché TSR newspaper comparison. You got 2 reps, well done.

I read a lot of stuff on here from people who say they're so anxious they hate things like shopping, going to the doctor, talking to people, etc. I'm not arrogant enough to think that because I don't understand it that it doesn't exist, but I do not understand how people cannot do these things. What do they think is going to happen if they talk to a cashier or a receptionist? Why do they care what people think of them? Why does it affect their lives so much?

I used to be shy, but I never had a problem with daily life. I got a voluntary job in a public-facing role and started talking to people whenever I could at work, making conversation with cashiers in other shops when buying things, phoning to complain about things to get my telephone skills up, etc, and now I'm really confident with social skills. Why can people with anxiety not do things like this? It's not going to get any better if they sit around and moan about it. Nobody really cares if you stumble your sentences in the real world, as long as you're nice to them.