Shy, introvert or avoiding?

I'd like to start by saying that this is not a field of study I have any knowledge about. I'm just writing from my point of view and how I've experienced things. Now, I've always been shy. My childhood consisted pretty much of me being by myself, and that didn't bother me. It wasn't like I didn't have friends but I was totally fine with just doing something alone. You might say that I enjoyed my own company.

Or did I? Even untill this day I'm not sure if I really thought that or I was trying to convince myself to believe I was fine. Playing football was my thing. That was my arena where I learned the social rules and norms and functioned as any other kid. But hanging out after school or meeting someone was difficult. I see in retrospect that my behaviour was very similar to the one I've practiced as a grown up.

My social anxiety kept me at home, keeping me at home and at the same time telling me I was happy. Making up excuses to not go out became my speciality.

Fast forward to when I started at University. I was stepping into the adult world and couldn't hide anymore. I chose to move in to a sort of a dorm, not knowing what to expect. But as it turned out it was the best years of my life. Living with strangers was challenging and fun at the same time. 

It wasn't untill I past 20 that I was formally diagnosed by the therapist I had to help me. The diagnose had a code that was put on my bill and I looked up what it meant. This is what I found out:

" Anxious [avoidant] personality disorder:Personality disorder characterized by feelings of tension and apprehension, insecurity and inferiority. There is a continuous yearning to be liked and accepted, a hypersensitivity to rejection and criticism with restricted personal attachments, and a tendency to avoid certain activities by habitual exaggeration of the potential dangers or risks in everyday situations."

This was a complete revelation to me. First of all that I'm not the only one with this kind of behaviour. But also how specific it is and it describes me to the dot. The internal struggle between me and the disease is still happening every day, on every desicion. Maybe I'll come back to it in a more in depth post.

Please remember that ""[y]ou are enough. You are so enough, it's unbelievable how enough you are. "