Birthday Parties Terrified Me - Social Anxiety

Hey, hey, and welcome back to another

exciting video. My hair's a bit wet

because I just came out the shower. So

what we're talking about today— sorry if I

sound a bit energetic, a bit hyperactive.

I just feel really excited today for some

reason. I need to calm down, calm down a

bit, calm down. So when I was a young

child— when I was a young child— so when I

was a young child, my mum would always be

organizing birthday parties for me, and I

used to absolutely hate it. She would just

randomly invite all these stupid kids from

the neighborhood and all of my friends

from primary school, and I didn't even

want them at my house. It was so

irritating. When the party started, I

would go up to my room and I'd just stay

in my room for the whole party, and I

wouldn't even come out until the end,

until everyone had left. There would be

like 20 kids, just random kids I didn't

even know from the street that she picked

up from the street. I don't even know how

she managed to gather them all up. Maybe

she went around in a van luring them in

with candy. Hey, do you want to come to my

son's birthday party? I've got candy.

Anyway, there'd be all these stupid

screaming kids in my house running around

making noise, and I would be absolutely

terrified. I'd be really scared, and I

wouldn't come out of my room. And everyone

thought I was weird. Like, why didn't

Daniel— why doesn't Daniel come out of his

bedroom? It's his own birthday party.

Where's the birthday boy? My mum kept

saying, Daniel, why don't you come out of

your room? All your friends are here. And

I said, no, they're not my friends. I want

to play Sega Mega Drive in my bedroom. Go

away. And there's this one time when 2 of

my friends came to my birthday party, and

one of them bought me a present, and the

other friend wanted to play with the

present. But the friend that had bought

the present, he said, no, that's Daniel's

present. Don't touch his present. And they

started having a fight in my house. They

were knocking stuff over and shouting.

Other kids were crying. I could hear it

all from my bedroom, so I came out of my

bedroom and I went downstairs to have a

look, have a peep, and it was just utter

chaos. It was hilarious. My mum had to

break up the fight and everyone went home,

so I was pretty happy. After everyone went

home, I snuck downstairs and started

eating the remains of the birthday cake,

all the leftover food. It's kind of sad,

isn't it? I was the birthday boy. They ate

my birthday cake. I had to eat the remains

of my own birthday cake after everyone had

left. Can you believe it? I mean, you

don't eat the birthday cake. You don't

start eating the birthday cake before the

birthday boy cuts his own birthday cake.

I didn't even blow out the candles.

Sometimes they'd bring slices of birthday

cake to my bedroom. They'd be like, knock

knock. I'd open it, take the cake, and

shut the door. And then everyone would

just carry on with the birthday party

without me. And there was this other time

when I wanted to go to one of my friend's

birthday parties, and I bought him a

present. And it was like a fancy dress

party. It was being held in like a town

hall or some kind of building. My dad took

me and we went to the building, went up to

the door, opened the door, and I looked

inside. There were all these kids. It was

so noisy and so busy and so many people,

and I just, I just froze. I was terrified.

I turned to my dad and I said, can we go

So my dad took the present, he gave it to

my friend's father, and he took me home.

I was so defeated. I felt so defeated and

upset and depressed. I really wanted to go

to the party and see my friends, but at

the same time, I was absolutely terrified.

I couldn't enter the building. There were

just so many kids and it was so noisy. I,

I felt like I was frozen inside. It was

like stage fright. I was grateful that my

dad just took me home and he didn't force

me to stay at the party, but it might have

been more helpful if he gave me some

encouragement and said something like,

You can do it. Just stay for half an hour.

Stay for an hour. Or maybe if he stayed

with me at the party until I had felt

comfortable to be alone. But my dad's

never been the kind of parent to push me

or to make me do things that I don't feel

comfortable with doing. And I think that's

one of the reasons why I became such a

timid and shy person growing up.

Maybe if he'd given me like a pep talk or

some encouragement before going into the

party, maybe if he said something like,

You can do this. I support you. We can go

in there together. Then maybe I could have

gone into the party and I wouldn't have

had this negative experience. And then

there's this other time when I went to

another friend's party and I went with my

mum. Usually all the other mums, they

would just drop off their kids and then

the mums would go home or they'd go

somewhere else. But I would beg my mum not

to go. I'd say, just stay for 10 minutes,

just stay for 20 minutes, stay for half an

hour. And in the end, I would get her to

stay for the entire party. And I would— I

wouldn't leave her side. I would just stay

behind her legs. I would hide behind her

legs. I would cling to her, and all the

other kids would be running around

playing, having fun, and I would just be

standing behind my mum holding her,

holding her dress or her skirt. It was so

pathetic. I remember the first day of

nursery school. I think you call it

kindergarten in America. I, um, I

literally begged my mum not to leave me,

but because it was school, the parents

couldn't stay at the class. I was so

upset, I was crying, and the teacher had

to comfort me and It was such a traumatic

experience. Some days before going to

school, I just break down in tears and

just start crying at my house, in my house

in the morning, because I really didn't

want to go to school. I'd be begging my

parents, please, please, I don't want to

go. Please don't take me. But after a

while, I got used to it. I made friends

and I started to have fun. I think that

when you have kids like me who have really

low confidence and aren't comfortable in

social situations, you shouldn't like try

and force them into those situations, but

then Also, you shouldn't be like my dad.

You shouldn't be really soft and just say,

okay, you don't have to go in there. We

can just go home and you can stay in your

room. Because hiding in my room didn't

really help me. It was the easier option,

but in the end, it didn't make me more

confident. It didn't make me feel more

comfortable around people. It actually

made— it made the situation worse. I think

that in those kind of situations, that

positive encouragement would have been

helpful. Maybe if he said something like,

if you stay at the party for an hour,

I'll buy you a new Mega Drive game.

Because it's important for children to

socialize when they're young. If you just

let your child hide in the house, hide in

their bedroom playing video games alone,

then it really stunts their development.

You know, they turn into people like me

who are really shy, really timid, have

social anxiety. So I think it's important

that from a young age you try and

encourage your children to interact with

other children and not hide away in their

rooms. So that was some parenting advice

from someone who has absolutely no

experience with parenting. Those are just

my personal experiences. Maybe other kids

also stayed in their rooms a lot and

played video games when they were young,

and they turned out to be perfectly normal

people. Even to this day, I try and avoid

social situations and parties, things like

that. Even now, they still really terrify

me and scare me. I feel really insecure

and nervous if I'm just in a, in a room

with a load of people that I don't know

well, and there's no one that I can hide

behind or that I could follow around or

cling to. I just don't have the confidence

to be able to go up to strangers and just

start a conversation, start talking. I

don't have the confidence to approach

people that I don't know. The problem is I

avoid getting myself into those kinds of

situations in the first place, so I never

get the opportunity to even try and build

up my confidence. Last year I went to a

Christmas party for my work, and it wasn't

so bad because I kind of just stuck around

my coworker. They, they were really nice

and friendly. And they kept me company,

and I even danced. It was kind of strange

for me. Anyway, those are just some

stories from my past about birthday

parties. I really hated birthday parties.

They were really— they were really scary.