First Job Experience for Someone with Social Anxiety Disorder

Before graduating from university, I began to fully embrace my unsociable side, living a life quite different from before. Because I couldn’t socialize, I thought I would live as an individual. However, upon starting work, I realized that workplace relationships, teamwork, group activities, and hierarchical structures were highly valued. I probably thought, “I may be bad at relationships and personality, but I work harder than anyone else, so that’s fine,” but that didn’t work.

Furthermore, my attitude and manners had become arrogant, self-righteous, brazen, and shameless. I had become a bad example of the opposite of what Shoma Morita called “pure humanity.” Unable to fully embrace vulnerability, I put on a false bravado of solitude. Influenced by Horney’s theory, I thought, “What’s wrong with being unsociable and unsociable?” I ate lunch and dinner alone almost every day, and spent most of my weekends alone.

However, once I stopped being a student and started working full-time as a regular employee, I was shocked by many things. Everyone immediately emphasized the group, and the work environment and hierarchical relationships felt like the military.

Even after regular working hours, there were meetings for improvement activities, and although participation was supposedly voluntary, the atmosphere made it feel like mandatory. There were also workplace events on weekends and company trips, making me feel like I was constantly with the workplace group.

High school and university had a more liberal atmosphere, so when I became a full-time working adult, I thought, “Is Japan really such a militaristic country? I thought it was more democratic and ruled by law.” I worked at that company for about three years, but I was disliked as an arrogant, unsociable, and strange person, subjected to harassment and bullying, and eventually gave in and resigned. This experience gave me a strong sense of the harshness, coldness, and injustice of the working world, and I lost faith in society and people.

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