Social anxiety. Group settings.

I used to have social anxiety really bad to the point I wouldn't even leave my place for weeks at a time and when I did have to go out I wouldn't go near anyone much less talk to them , I was pretty much a hermit living in solitude and isolation and only going out when the need was great , but then the loneliness started to set in and when I got desperate for attention I decided to face my fears a little bit at a time , I had to force myself to go out then I found out about a local church food pantry so I went every week and I would stand in line and soon started talking to people there and soon I was opening up and meeting people from the church then I met the pastor and eventually joined the church so I would go every Sunday but even at those point I was still leary of large crowds of people so I sat in the back in the balcony where there wasn't a lot of people.

Then I eventually found out about a support group from one of the other church members called celebrate recovery and I started attending groups and even though it was a smaller group of people I was still feeling anxious about it so I set away from the group in what was called large group then we would break up into women and men for what they called small group I thought well this just keeps getting better so I sat and mostly listened yo the men talk as I was to nervous to talk at first but eventually after about 5 meetings I started opening up to them , and thanks to this group they really helped me to become the person that o am today.