Social anxiety isn’t just nerves before a party. It’s the constant rehearsal of conversations that never happen, the second-guessing of every word, the fear that your voice will betray you before you’ve even begun. For me, it’s tangled up with a speech impediment, those moments when the sentence in my head refuses to come out clean, when I stumble over syllables and watch the listener’s patience flicker.
It makes the simplest interactions feel like climbing a mountain in flip-flops. Ordering coffee, answering the phone, even saying hello can feel like tests I’m destined to fail.
Books gave me a way out. They don’t interrupt or judge. They wait. In their silence I found companionship without pressure, voices steadier than mine, stories that carried the words I couldn’t. Reading became refuge: proof that connection doesn’t always need conversation. Alone with a book, I’m not lonely. The hush of turning pages is its own comfort, a reminder that communication isn’t only about speaking, it’s also about listening, absorbing, and letting stories say what I sometimes can’t.