# Started law school and my life fell apart



## no1inparticular (Feb 2, 2015)

I have a hard time talking about this because I don't want anyone in my life to know how bad it is, but here goes: I’ve never been good at “making friends” or “being popular”, but I almost always had a few good friends to help me through life. I had terrible, paralyzing anxiety as a young teen. 

I started law school thousands of miles away from the area of the US where I’d grown up and had my first job (scholarship/never really fitting in the place I grew up/desire to experience new places). Before this, life was good, but stagnating. I’m a woman in my late 20s. I thought this would be a great new adventure. Boy, was I wrong.

For the non-law people: US law school sort every student into a section. The first year, you have all your classes with your section. So I see the same people for 4-10 hours per day, every day. It’s been a disaster from Day 1. First, I was assigned a much-younger roommate who couldn’t be more different than I am (M). M is in my section. M is popular because she’s a hard-partier, but also viciously cruel- the first week of law school, she taped a classmate, L, with the intention of putting this video on YouTube to “so the other sections could see how annoying he is”. Who does that?! Fortunately she told me, so I told her that she couldn’t do that. I didn’t even like L then, but nobody deserves that. 

Every day seems worse. I get more and more isolated. It started with classmates, spurred by M, excluding me from group chats. 4-6 of us would be sitting at a library table, and they would all chat on Facebook or via text… but not include me. On social nights, they would start posting Instagram pics with their own ‘best group’ hashtags. Then the racist, homophobic, nasty stuff they said even in spoken conversations was so disgusting that I thought eff this. Some of the other ones were plain old selfish and mean- I consoled and listened patiently to one girl, also younger than I am. On top of the usual law school stress, she had a family member crisis during fall semester. I thought she and I were friend-ly even if not best friends. But she clearly did not care about me; she was using me to befriend M. I tried to find other people, and basically… no one wanted to hang out with me. I’ve joined student groups (which don’t meet very often because of our school workload), I’ve tried inviting people to study, I’ve tried striking up conversations on common interests. Last week, my roommate flipped out at me for objecting to her having a guest for three days. I had to report her because she was screaming at/threatening me, so at least the school let me move into a different graduate student apartment, a single. But now I am even more isolated. 

To top it all off, I’ve developed a huge crush on L. I thought he was handsome last semester but convinced myself that I should only focus on school. This semester, he and I were chatting in class when I realized “Wow, this guy is really funny and interesting”. But now that I realized I’d love to ask him out… I can’t even look at him. I feel paralyzed when he sits near me in the library; I want to just be cool and go sit by him! A few days ago, I thought I’d mention to him that I finally read the book he recommended, so I dressed nicely (I had a meeting with my favorite professor, who is young and stylish, she even told me I looked cute that day!). Then he spoke to everyone in the class *but* me. I felt so cripplingly awkward that I just stared at my laptop and tried not to look at him. He’s older than I am, so I’m afraid I’d look silly trying to flirt with him. He’s chatty with everyone, so he was probably just being nice to me. And I have a weird, dark sense of humor (shocking for a socially anxious person, I know.... sarcasm) that I know a lot of men think is undesirable in a woman.

I had a very good handle on my social anxiety all through college and work. I had male and female friends to confide in, boyfriends in the past; I was confident approaching/dating men. I negotiated raises at work and volunteered for social causes. Now I avoid making eye contact with people, don’t speak in class, am too scared to talk to this guy. Interview coaches and professors tell me that my voice is too soft and quiet, but I feel like I’m screaming if I talk any more loudly. I had worked so hard to build up my confidence and now it is just gone. I don’t know what to do to get it back.


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## Imbored21 (Jun 18, 2012)

Wow those people sound like ****s - especially M. I have no advice for you because I'm a complete failure, but I feel your pain. I feel like I make progress with my social anxiety all the time, but lose it shortly after. I will never be a functioning human being. Wow I'm sooo bad at life.


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## buutenks (Mar 15, 2012)

no1inparticular said:


> I have a hard time talking about this because I don't want anyone in my life to know how bad it is, but here goes: I've never been good at "making friends" or "being popular", but I almost always had a few good friends to help me through life. I had terrible, paralyzing anxiety as a young teen.
> 
> I started law school thousands of miles away from the area of the US where I'd grown up and had my first job (scholarship/never really fitting in the place I grew up/desire to experience new places). Before this, life was good, but stagnating. I'm a woman in my late 20s. I thought this would be a great new adventure. Boy, was I wrong.
> 
> ...


Well i wouldnt avoid him if u really like him.U can flirt with him if u really like him,nothing wrong with that.If he likes u back he will do the same.


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