Social anxiety disorder research for Cape

Instructions

Back to the application: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1325810991 —————————————————————————— Research Social anxiety is an anxiety disorder characterized by abnormal/extreme levels of anxiety centered around social settings and interaction. It can have many causes, but in Cape's situation his is caused by genetics/brain structure. The symptoms of Social anxiety are intense fear of situations that may cause embarrassment, intense fear/worry about embarrassing yourself, intense fear of interacting with strangers, fear of appearing to be anxious/of physical symptoms that may cause embarrassment(blushing, shaking etc), avoidance of interacting with people out of fear of embarrassment, avoidance of situations where you may be the center of attention, intense fear/anxiety leading up to and during social interaction/events, and analysis of your performance and what you did wrong during social interactions. Physical symptoms can include a tense/stiff posture, blushing, trembling, sweating, nausea, dizziness, trouble catching your breath, feeling like your mind is blank and muscle tension. How this affects Cape Cape will experience most of the listed symptoms, but will most commonly avoid social interactions with strangers or acquaintances due to fear of judgement/embarrassment, intensely analyze every new interaction, and avoid anything that would draw attention to himself. When his anxiety is active, he feels a tight chest, dizziness, tension, trembling, blank mind and nausea in severe occasions. As a hyc, he stays fairly unbothered by his social anxiety as he is able to avoid interacting with other hycs and hang out with his siblings. However, once he is a Hyle he won't be able to avoid those things anymore and be forced to interact with his mentor and other cats in order to stay on track with his training. He still attempts to skip training for solo practice and grows to love hunting for the solitude and is determined to be good at stealth so he can avoid his mentor. Hence the title "The Ghost in The Woods" for my application. It specifically refers to him finding refuge in sneaking out of camp and hiding in the territory of the Court of Trial. During his adolescence he may make a friend or two. His ability to form relationships with other cats is severely affected. He will not want to interact with unfamiliar cats and even when he attempts to, he most likey will feel like he messed up so bad that he will never speak to that cat again. Him making friends will rely on consistent low stakes interactions with the same cat until he feels comfortable enough with them to open up more. This would include: being close to each other/on the same patrol/doing the same chore etc. but not conversing, the other cat talking to him instead of him talking to them and greetings. As a Hyleme, he will continue to struggle with social interactions, often eating only at odd times to reduce the chances of another cat seeing him. He will still spend a lot of time on his own in the territory but since he will have made a friend at this point, he'll also spend time with them. Cape will also stick to his siblings like glue throughout his whole life(touched on more in family dynamics). By adulthood he may have some coping mechanisms in place and will reframe his negative thoughts. However, he will never be comfortable in social settings, even if he learns to not let anxiety control his life, it will always be there. In a romantic sense, he is the type to have crushes from afar and will probably avoid his crush even more than regular cats. He may end up with a partner someday but that's definitely not his focus.