How to stop being annoying: Is it all in your head?

It is common to experience some degree of anxiety at some point in your life— and few people are completely immune to its effects. A low level of anxiety may even be beneficial in certain situations, such as when your safety or the safety of a loved one is at stake. Anxiety can heighten awareness, sharpen senses and reflexes, and improve performance during a sporting event, concert, or important work function. 

However, when you have clinical anxiety, your body’s anxiety response may be activated more frequently and may feel more intense. This level of anxiety can begin to interfere with everyday life and may cause you to feel like you’re annoying the people around you. While these thoughts are often unfounded and created by an anxious and activated brain, they can be hard to overcome without the right support.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a feeling that can occur when you’re stressed, tense, worried, or afraid. Sometimes, these fears are a response to an immediate threat, while other times, they’re a response to something that could happen in the future—no matter how unlikely. Clinical anxiety doesn't discriminate, affecting up to 33.7% of the general population at some point in life, and it seems to impact people of all genders.

Individuals living with anxiety may have more sensitive nervous systems. Therefore, they may experience sensory stimuli in their environment at greater magnitudes. A person can experience anxiety in many forms (physical, mental, emotional), and the disorder can bring with it a host of negative emotions.

Social anxiety, a specific type of anxiety, has many different subsets, making it one of the most widespread and under-recognized mental health conditions. This type of anxiety can make you feel as if you bother those around you and can leave you wondering what others think about you. Social anxiety can quickly take control of your thoughts and make you feel irritable and on edge. The anxious brain tends to generate thoughts about worst-case scenarios, and in this case, anxiety can make you habitually question if you’re annoying everyone around you. You may also ruminate over ways to stop being annoying.

It can be important to understand that while these thoughts feel very real, mental health conditions like anxiety can make you believe a lot of untrue things about yourself. Although you might feel like you’re annoying and you may be searching for ways to stop, it may be helpful to recognize that many of these thoughts are simply byproducts of a mental health condition. Addressing your anxiety may help you overcome these thoughts and allow you to build up your self-esteem and self-confidence.

Anxiety can be highly treatable with therapy and medication. It’s recommended that you consult with your doctor or primary care physician before considering any medication options.

How to stop thinking you’re annoying

If you have anxiety, you may be concerned (or you may have even received criticism) that you are becoming annoying. It could be that some of your anxious behaviors have made people around you feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced, or this may just be a perception that you have, whether true or not.

However, much of this annoyance can come from misunderstanding or ignorance about anxiety. It can be important for your friends and family to know that these fears and bodily sensations you are living with are real and not a figment of your imagination. It can also be helpful if they understand that your anxiety is not always easy to control. According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, awareness about anxiety disorders is considered an important step in providing support to help those living with anxiety.

Individuals experiencing anxiety may have difficulty holding eye contact with others, may feel that others are encroaching on their personal space, may exhibit agitated body language traits (such as fidgeting), and may conclude that these actions are annoying people around them. People with anxiety may even avoid socializing with family members due to their perceived annoying behavior. If you feel that you will never be able to learn new social skills or stop being annoying, it is important to remember that long-term change may take time.

However, you ultimately have no way of knowing if they are truly paying attention to you without asking.

Many people may be too concerned with what is going on inside themselves to care a whole lot about what you are doing. Challenging these types of cognitive distortions may help you manage your anxiety.

There are many strategies to control or modify symptoms of clinical anxiety. Relaxation techniques and meditation can be helpful methods that decrease the responses of the sympathetic nervous system. Talk therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), can help change how you think about the things that can make you anxious and may help change your responses to anxiety (like avoidance behaviors) so that you can feel less limited and isolated by your symptoms. There are also medications that can improve feelings of anxiety. Exposure therapy may also help you face your fears, calm your body, and gain confidence.

Symptoms of anxiety

Many people who are prone to anxiety may be more likely than others to misattribute their normal physical symptoms to a serious underlying disease. Avoidance behaviors can also be common for many people with tendencies toward anxiety, as they may try to manipulate the external environment to avoid exacerbating their symptoms. Many people stop going to certain places or taking part in certain events, finding their worlds shrinking smaller and smaller in an attempt to avoid anxiety. Since anxiety can be a biological condition as well as an environmental one, it can still occur in isolation.

Feeling as if your mind has gone blank can be a common symptom of anxiety, especially in the context of public speaking of any kind. Sweating, trembling, tight muscles, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal problems like nausea or upset stomach, and dizziness or lightheadedness can all be signs of anxiety in the body.

How anxiety may manifest

It can be difficult to predict an external cause for anxiety, as the causes can be different for different people. 

Doing everyday tasks, especially in front of other people, can cause people with social anxiety great distress. Fear of feeling anxious can inhibit participation in regular activities, like going to work or school, or lead people to stay away from places that cause anxiety symptoms. A common manifestation of this is trouble talking to people on the phone or difficulty finding the right words in conversations with others. Many people experience a fear of public speaking in formal situations, like at work or at a social event.

For others, anxiety about using the bathroom in others’ proximity causes anxiety (paruresis), as does anxiety about eating or drinking in front of others. For some, the threat of feeling anxious and its misattributions may incite anger or irritability or inspire feelings of inferiority. Anxiety can contribute to difficulties with focus and concentration and can cause sleep disturbances, too.

The bodily sensations that often accompany anxiety are not necessarily dangerous in themselves. For example, shortness of breath or an accelerated heartbeat is not necessarily an indication of a heart attack. However, people who experience anxiety could be more at risk of long-term negative impacts of stress, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcers, and other digestive concerns. Anxiety also can contribute to other mental health conditions in some people, such as depression. Seeking care can be one of the first steps in moving past negative, untrue thoughts that may be holding you captive.

Online therapy with BetterHelp

If you are currently experiencing anxiety, you might consider talking to a professional to see what kind of therapy could be most effective for you. If your symptoms are severe enough that it’s difficult to leave the house, it may be helpful to connect with a therapist online. BetterHelp is an online counseling platform with more than 25,000 licensed counselors who have experience in a variety of areas, so you can be matched with a counselor who has experience treating anxiety. With BetterHelp, you can connect with a therapist however you prefer, whether by phone, live chat, videoconferencing, or even a combination of these methods.

Talking with a licensed therapist may be a productive way to begin to manage your symptoms so that you can start interacting with the world without feeling controlled by your anxious thoughts and behaviors.

The effectiveness of online therapy

Studies show that online therapy can be effective for a variety of mental health concerns. In particular, there are effective methods of treatment if a person feels that they are annoying. One such study found that video-based cognitive behavior therapy can effectively treat symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Below are some reviews of BetterHelp counselors from people experiencing similar concerns.

Counselor reviews

“Madeline is a great counselor who helped walk me through many life transitions and especially through my anxiety. She helped me find the correct tools to handle life events and anxious moments. I learned how to process my emotions in healthier ways and how to employ better coping tools when my anxiety was high. With her help I was able to see a huge change in outlook when challenged by life.”

“Miss Tangela is a great counselor. This was my first time in therapy of any kind. I was very nervous and she helped me get through my anxiety and really helped me work through a low point in my life. She always made me feel heard and like she truly cared about my mental health. She has helped me develop great coping strategies and new techniques to help with my anxiety and depression. I would recommend Miss Tangela to anyone and everyone.”