6 Ways to Overcome Your Holiday Party Anxiety
She still doesn’t like parties, but over the years O’s life coach has come up with some strategies to help keep her out of the coatroom.
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If you are reading this with mounting excitement, thinking about the wonderful parties you're going to throw or attend this holiday season, allow me to congratulate you. I'm one of the millions of party-impaired individuals who stand in awe of people like you—people who love to entertain, meet new friends, cavort with fun-loving crowds. When you invite the rest of us to your celebrations, we are honored, even though it brings us the same joy we'd feel if you handed us a large, angry scorpion.
For party-phobes like myself, it's a struggle to remember in the celebratory horrors of the season that we are not alone. Everyone around you may look as happy as a hog in slop, but if you spiked the punch with sodium pentothal, you'd probably find that a large number of the guests get nervous, if not at this particular party then at others. I have friends who dread intimate get-togethers with close friends, the only type of party that doesn't make me want to open my veins with a crab fork. Yet they actually enjoy experiences that haunt my nightmares, such as huge revels where thousands of strangers chug beer from plastic cups and shout to one another over deafening music.
If the thought of a party alarms you, it's likely you suffer from some level of social phobia, the most common anxiety disorder to afflict Americans. Its primary symptom is an oppressive sense of being criticized and judged. True social-phobes are so unnerved by this feeling that they can't relax unless they are completely alone. Most of us aren't that badly afflicted, but the season's festivities are likely to ignite any wisps of social anxiety we happen to have. Headed for some gala event, you might find yourself feeling tense and irritable rather than relaxed and jolly. You may feel as if you're walking into a war zone.
The phrase "war party" not only describes a gang of soldiers but also signifies a method of heightening courage before combat. A phenomenon called social contagion accentuates emotion when we gather in groups. It can turn ordinary people into murderous mobs, panicky crowds, or selfless martyrs. Warlike cultures traditionally utilize this tendency to excite fighters so much that they'll happily march into mortal danger. The warriors wear special clothing, paint their faces, and indulge in what anthropologists call the four D's: drinking, drugging, dancing, and drumming. All these activities help put people in that hazy psychological territory where pure action rules and thought becomes irrelevant. My favorite term for this condition comes from ancient Ireland, where soldiers aspired to a condition called a warp spasm. This was a sort of Incredible Hulk experience in which warriors were literally transformed into wild, fearless, invincible heroes.
If this description doesn't remind you of a holiday party, you don't have much social anxiety. We party-phobes know exactly how it feels to don the armor of a little black dress, slather on our best war paint, and throw ourselves into the four D's, hoping desperately for a warp spasm to grab us and carry us beyond our fear. The phobic person's party rituals aren't expressions of joy. Every act, from choosing clothes to making small talk, is a fear-based defense against criticism: What will people think of my shoes, my hair, my conversation? Celebrations loom like battles, crowded with opponents who can't wait to skewer us on the blades of disdain and rejection. Fortunately, there is hope for the party-impaired.
Most of us social-phobes try to cheer ourselves up with vague positive thinking, hoping that something will happen so that this shindig won't be as excruciating as the last. It's wiser to simply admit that we feel like we're headed to our own execution, except that we won't get to be dead afterward.
But we also have to realize that our social anxiety is telling us lies, primarily a ridiculous fiction that everyone is scrutinizing us for flaws. It helps me to remember the 20-40-60 rule, which I learned from a friend: "When you're 20, you're obsessed with what everyone is thinking about you; when you're 40, you stop caring what people are thinking about you; and when you're 60, you realize that no one was ever thinking about you." Mentally repeating this adage might help moderate your unease as you near the front.
For party-phobes like myself, it's a struggle to remember in the celebratory horrors of the season that we are not alone. Everyone around you may look as happy as a hog in slop, but if you spiked the punch with sodium pentothal, you'd probably find that a large number of the guests get nervous, if not at this particular party then at others. I have friends who dread intimate get-togethers with close friends, the only type of party that doesn't make me want to open my veins with a crab fork. Yet they actually enjoy experiences that haunt my nightmares, such as huge revels where thousands of strangers chug beer from plastic cups and shout to one another over deafening music.
If the thought of a party alarms you, it's likely you suffer from some level of social phobia, the most common anxiety disorder to afflict Americans. Its primary symptom is an oppressive sense of being criticized and judged. True social-phobes are so unnerved by this feeling that they can't relax unless they are completely alone. Most of us aren't that badly afflicted, but the season's festivities are likely to ignite any wisps of social anxiety we happen to have. Headed for some gala event, you might find yourself feeling tense and irritable rather than relaxed and jolly. You may feel as if you're walking into a war zone.
A War Party
The phrase "war party" not only describes a gang of soldiers but also signifies a method of heightening courage before combat. A phenomenon called social contagion accentuates emotion when we gather in groups. It can turn ordinary people into murderous mobs, panicky crowds, or selfless martyrs. Warlike cultures traditionally utilize this tendency to excite fighters so much that they'll happily march into mortal danger. The warriors wear special clothing, paint their faces, and indulge in what anthropologists call the four D's: drinking, drugging, dancing, and drumming. All these activities help put people in that hazy psychological territory where pure action rules and thought becomes irrelevant. My favorite term for this condition comes from ancient Ireland, where soldiers aspired to a condition called a warp spasm. This was a sort of Incredible Hulk experience in which warriors were literally transformed into wild, fearless, invincible heroes.
If this description doesn't remind you of a holiday party, you don't have much social anxiety. We party-phobes know exactly how it feels to don the armor of a little black dress, slather on our best war paint, and throw ourselves into the four D's, hoping desperately for a warp spasm to grab us and carry us beyond our fear. The phobic person's party rituals aren't expressions of joy. Every act, from choosing clothes to making small talk, is a fear-based defense against criticism: What will people think of my shoes, my hair, my conversation? Celebrations loom like battles, crowded with opponents who can't wait to skewer us on the blades of disdain and rejection. Fortunately, there is hope for the party-impaired.
Acknowledge The Facts
Most of us social-phobes try to cheer ourselves up with vague positive thinking, hoping that something will happen so that this shindig won't be as excruciating as the last. It's wiser to simply admit that we feel like we're headed to our own execution, except that we won't get to be dead afterward.
But we also have to realize that our social anxiety is telling us lies, primarily a ridiculous fiction that everyone is scrutinizing us for flaws. It helps me to remember the 20-40-60 rule, which I learned from a friend: "When you're 20, you're obsessed with what everyone is thinking about you; when you're 40, you stop caring what people are thinking about you; and when you're 60, you realize that no one was ever thinking about you." Mentally repeating this adage might help moderate your unease as you near the front.
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