Social anxiety worse in a certain mood and/or around old, mentally strong or arrogant people (or in higher positions)?
I believe I've had social anxiety since late childhood. I've only started fighting against it less than a year ago, and I noticed something that I'm wondering if it has a particular significance. I noticed that it gets worse when I'm sad or angry (about something that may even not be related to social anxiety itself) like when I'm on a depression relapse, or when I'm not confident about the way I look. I usually manage it easily around family, friends, people I already know and are easy to communicate with/appear to be kind and even on the rare times I can't manage it, the symptoms are barely visible to others. However, when I go somewhere new and see new people, when I'm around people that I usually avoid talking to, or when I'm around people who are known to be arrogant or of a strong personnality and/or in a higher position (for example a professor at college). I also have a hard time talking to administrative assitants in any etablissement because I've had previous brief experiences with people of that particular status and they weren't pleasing. Does this make any sense? Is it normal for social anxiety to increase when one or more of those parameters are present? Anyone who have it in a similar way? I've been curious about this for months and thought it wasn't important enough to share/ask questions... I really want to see if there are people socially anxious people who also have noticed it getting worse in the presence of similar parameters.