Social Anxiety Playing Online Games?

[Liana]

This isn't related to PTSD in anyway, but does anyone else get anxiety whilst playing games?

I have just started playing League of Legends, my boyfriend is helping me and I'm finding it quite fun. I was too scared to play with other people though so I started out playing millions of custom bot games.. but it's helping my social anxiety as I start to play with people.
I'm also playing hearthstone which is great because the other person can't actually talk to you, so I can play against other people without having to worry about them saying anything.

However, that being said, my hands to shake uncontrollably throughout the whole thing - especially on League of Legends because my team can talk to me, as well as the other team (but for now I am playing against AI).

So yeah, does anyone else have this problem with online games?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I don't play online games, but I just want to say that I think it's great that you're taking steps to reduce your social anxiety. My social anxiety was so bad at one point that it was an all day ordeal just to run to the store to pick up something. I didn't have friends or family to help me at the time, which I think was good because I had to force myself to overcome my anxiety just to survive. This is why I want to encourage you to keep pushing yourself forward. And, I think you found a good way to do it!

 

[ericaboo]

I have this problem too. I gave up playing those games - they were stressful, not fun for me.

I suppose I should try to overcome this, so I can enjoy life more. I have to deal with social anxiety at work every day, so I usually neglect the way it interferes with my off time... I just try to hide out and recharge before I have to go back into "the trenches."

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

Yup, used to play an a free to play MMO and essentially stopped when it came to a point that I needed help to play further, I felt like a burden and felt uncomfortable interacting with others, especially if it ever meant asking for help - I did find it marginally better helping other newer characters for free which was better, but I still essentially didn't talk and then felt bad about it, and freaked out if people tried directly messaging me. On a different side, with the Fable series - a game you choose how good/bad you are - I cannot do anything other than good because I worry too much about upsetting pixels >_<