Shyness Medicated
“Shyness is a branch of faith”…except in America, where it’s now classified as a mental disorder.
~ Imam Zaid Shakir
I remember crying and being frozen in fear at having to answer the home phone. I also remember preferring to keep quiet and be a wallflower at most parties while growing up. I liked hiding in the shadow of my more social elder sisters. I had friends: few very close friends and the rest were aquaintances. I am an introvert by nature preferring a quiet evening at home with a good book or one-on-one time with good friends or family than a big bash or get together. I have also given speeches to audiences of hundreds – stage fright intact – and taught classes upon classes of students. For some being shy can be debilitating. For me being shy was something I didn’t change, but I learned to work with through humour. I use that experience as a way to connect with my son who is much more social than I am. While it is difficult for me sometimes, I have to force myself to put myself out there because my son needs it. And I need to fight that desire to just be at home especially because we homeschool. He also, at times, needs his space and break from people and things, and I get that. But that should not mean that there is something wrong with me or that I have some sort of mental health problem.
The crazy desire to drug the planet seems to be reaching insane levels. The redefinition of ‘shyness’ and other traits of character for what used to be considered healthy people has been in the works since early last year.
Millions of healthy people – including shy or defiant children, grieving relatives and people with fetishes – may be wrongly labeled mentally ill by a new international diagnostic manual, specialists said on Thursday.
In a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts said its new categories and “tick-box” diagnosis systems were at best “silly” and at worst “worrying and dangerous.”
Read the full article here.
Apparently, the definition of normal is getting narrower everyday. Are we heading towards an overly drugged world? What does this mean for our children who have no room to be themselves?
black board, white chalk 
telling shy people that they need medication, that’s rediculous!
I agree! Thank you for taking the time to comment.