Tag: Social Anxiety

The Girl Hidden Beneath The Layers

I let her down.

I let myself down.

I neglected her.

I silenced her.

I hid her away and refused to let her out.

She’s confused. She doesn’t understand why.

Why can’t I be seen?

What’s so wrong with me?

Why am I not allowed to become?

She wants to speak.

She wants to be free.

I resented the world that made me feel like I had to hide her.

The way she was — it didn’t seem acceptable.

She was emotional. Jumpy. Easily excitable. A little skittish.

Were those really such terrible things?

She was sensitive, empathetic, introverted, and quiet.

These are not threatening traits.

So why was she treated like prey?

I know now — my mind was trying to protect us.

It thought staying small would keep us safe.

It wanted us to be accepted. Approved. Included.

But in doing so, it buried her too deep.

And she grew scared.

Anxious.

Untrusting.

My mind told her she was dangerous.

That letting her out would risk everything.

That she would embarrass us.

And others seemed to agree.

They liked us better quiet. Composed. “Easy.”

The Woman Pushing Through the Layers

But she’s still here.

That frightened little girl beneath the layers — I still feel her.

She’s still a little unsure, but she’s beginning to trust me again.

She’s slowly, carefully stepping into the light.

She’s starting to believe she’s no longer a risk.

That maybe… she’s okay just as she is.

And together, our hearts hurt a little less.

Still, I carry the guilt.

Guilt that I didn’t accept her.

That I believed others wouldn’t either.

Sometimes, it feels like I wasted the first half of my life.

All that time spent hiding.

People-pleasing.

Performing.

Now, I want to make it up to her.

But I can’t go back in time.

And I’m no longer that girl.

I’m a woman now.

And being a woman, I’m not “supposed” to act like a teenager.

So how do I carry both — the girl and the woman — at once?

Where Do We Go From Here?

How do you make peace with the younger version of yourself?

Can we ever truly reclaim the time we lost?

Are we allowed to play, to dream, to be a little wild — even now — just to give her what we once denied?

Maybe we need a new phrase.

Something for those of us who are too old for “YOLO”…

But still crave that same hall pass to let the inner girl shine.

Maybe this is what becoming looks like —

Not erasing the past,

But embracing all the layers of who we were and who we are still becoming.

✨ Have you ever felt like you buried a part of yourself?

✨ What would you say to the younger you, if you could?

❓Is there a new word or phrase we can use instead of YOLO? Something for the middle-aged?

Share with me in the comments or send me a message — I’d love to hear your story.

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Breathless in Social Anxiety

The Critic

It feels like the person in front of you can see right through you.

Everything you’re trying to hide — they can see.

In that very moment, you’re sure they’ve figured it out:

You’re a fraud.

They’re judging every detail about you — and you’re sure they’re doing it silently.

They’ve already decided they don’t like you.

They’re planning to never talk to you again.

Everyone is against you.

Everyone doesn’t like you.

Everyone wishes you’d go away — and so I did.

What They Don’t Know

Inside, the racing thoughts never stop:

  • I need to change.
  • I need to be better.
  • Why is this so hard for me?
  • Why does it come so easily for everyone else?
  • Why does this make me so nervous?

What Does Anxiety Feel Like?

For me, it feels like I’m not breathing — or like I’ve forgotten how.

My breaths are shallow. Sometimes, the words don’t come out right.

My mouth gets dry.

My hands tremble.

My heart races.

My mind goes blank — mid-conversation — and I forget what we were even talking about.

The response I had practiced disappears the moment I try to speak.

Only when I step away, when my heart slows and my mind clears, can I start to reflect:

Why does this keep happening to me?

The Pattern

This is when I begin to connect the dots.

  • The deer-in-the-headlights expression on their face whenever I tried to speak.
  • The labels put on me that confirmed I was “different.”
  • The constant corrections when I spoke.
  • The hazy mind and poor memory that I couldn’t explain.

Going Down the Dark Path

Once you believe it yourself:

“I’m weird.”

“I’m different.”

“I’m odd.”

“I’m defective.”

It changes the way you see the world — and yourself in it.

You start getting angry at yourself for being the way you are.

You start resenting the world for how it operates.

You avoid social events.

You stay home more often.

You begin to suffer in silence.

This path is dangerous. It can lead to severe mental health struggles.

If you find yourself here — please, reach out for help.

Finding the Other Path

There’s another path — but it’s harder to see when you’ve lived so long believing the lies.

It’s terrifying to put yourself out there again.

To risk being vulnerable.

To risk being misunderstood.

But sometimes, something unlocks the possibility:

A lyric in a song.

A scene from a movie.

A moment of loss.

A breaking point.

And you can see the paths in front of you:

Do you stay in the bubble where it’s safe — where no one can hurt you?

Or do you fight for the life you deserve?

The life where you become something more?

This is the moment your true character reveals itself.

This is where your inner strength is put to the test.

How to Fight Back

For me, healing feels like clawing my way out of my own grave.

You can’t see the surface.

You don’t even know what life will look like once you get there.

You dig. And dig.

And it feels like there’s no progress.

You’re exhausted. You want to give up.

And sometimes, while you’re digging — someone else throws more dirt in your way.

That’s the hardest part.

To keep going while still getting hurt.

But if you can keep going despite the pain — something powerful begins to shift.

You prove to yourself that you’re strong.

You’re resilient.

And slowly… you start to see the progress.

You dig deeper.

You dig harder.

You fear less.

You prepare more.

People around you begin to notice.

You begin to return to your true self.

If you’ve walked a path like mine, leave a comment or hit the like button.

For the healing hearts,

Jenna

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What It Felt Like to Be Misunderstood with ADHD

Before Diagnosis

The worst part was not knowing I had ADHD — and hating myself for feeling broken while everyone else seemed fine.

I couldn’t understand why most interactions felt foggy. Why I struggled to remember simple tasks or conversations I just had. It felt like a handicap of the mind.

You feel compassion for those who live with visible disabilities, and yet you can’t imagine living like that. But when your disability is invisible — and your body is “healthy,” your genetics “good,” your appearance “normal” — the failure feels like a personal defect. A disappointment. Someone you wish you weren’t.

Every day was exhausting. Every day I struggled. Every day was more proof that I was inadequate and incapable, while everyone around me seemed to be handed the missing pieces they needed to feel whole — confidence, competence, connection.

Knowing that my brain worked differently filled me with dread every time I had to speak to someone.

“They’re going to see how empty I am. How broken I am.”

When nearly every interaction makes you feel foolish, you start avoiding them. The conversations get fewer. The people get more distant. And then the thoughts kick in:

“Everyone hates me.”

“No one likes me.”

“I’m weird. I’m broken.”

So the next conversation becomes high-stakes. You tell yourself this one has to go well. But the nerves kick in. Maybe I mix up facts. Maybe I stutter. Maybe I forget what I was saying halfway through the sentence.

And once again, I “fail.”

Each interaction became confirmation that I was defective — and that people were right to keep their distance. My confidence shattered. My mental health deteriorated. I began to fear speaking at all. Social anxiety took over. I isolated myself.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life was to keep walking into spaces where I felt humiliated — workplaces, social circles, family gatherings — knowing I would likely screw up again. But I kept going. I kept trying. And I kept being hurt.

I was bullied. I was mocked for being “weird,” “awkward,” for “never relaxing.”

People would joke:

“Why don’t you open up?”

“She’s like a cardboard cutout.”

I knew exposure therapy was supposed to help, but in a toxic environment, it only deepened the fear. The anxiety. The damage. Still, I kept showing up.

My family knew what I was going through and told me I had incredible inner strength. That even walking into those rooms was bravery.

Wearing a wig while doing it? Another kind of bravery altogether.

Wigs are… complicated. You get bad ones, okay ones, and maybe a decent one. I’ve yet to find one that looks real. They’re uncomfortable, itchy, and frustrating.

(But that’s a whole separate blog post.)

The worst part of all of it? Suppression. Bottling up emotions became a survival tactic. I had to stay on guard constantly — hide the ADHD, hide the fear, hide everything. Over time, I wasn’t just hiding the “defective” parts. I was hiding me.

And sometimes, those suppressed emotions would start to bubble up — and I’d be terrified to let them out.

What if I lose control? What if I do something I can’t take back? What if I push everyone away and end up alone forever?

So I kept the bottle sealed. I only let out enough to catch my breath… but never enough to heal.

The Vicious Cycle

It’s a vicious cycle. One that’s incredibly hard to break.

The people you surround yourself with can either help you climb out of it — or drag you deeper in.

(In another post, I’ll share stories of the people who played both roles.)

But the truth is something I’ve heard time and time again:

No one can save you but you.

And the moment you decide to change your life — for your good — everything begins to shift.

After Diagnosis

ADHD feels like you’re being pulled in ten directions at once.

Your brain is buzzing constantly. Everything feels urgent. Everything needs to be done now — all at the same time.

So you bounce from one task to another without finishing anything. You interrupt one activity to start a new one. You forget the first thing while trying to remember the third. And because you’re so afraid of forgetting something else, you just keep starting and abandoning.

It’s exhausting. No wonder we feel confused and foggy all the time.

This isn’t laziness. It’s not a character flaw. It’s neurology.

And knowing that? Understanding that my brain just works differently?

It changed everything.

It gave me permission to stop beating myself up. It gave me hope.

It gave me back me.

My brain is not broken. And neither is yours.

We are not defective. We are not failures.

We are healing.

Thank you for reading.

For the healing hearts.

Love,

Jenna

✨ If this post hit close to home, please share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

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🖤 Welcome to Wig Girl Interrupted

Hi, I’m Jenna — and I’m finally ready to stop hiding.

Starting this blog feels both exciting and terrifying. I’ve never done anything like this before — no personal site, no blog posts, nothing that asked me to be this visible. But after everything I’ve been through — from childhood hair loss to years of self-erasure — I know this step matters.

Sometimes the scariest things are the most important.

✨ Why I’m Here

For most of my life, I struggled to understand what was wrong with me.

I lost my hair as a child and spent years covering it with wigs, trying to blend in. I froze in conversations, avoided mirrors, and shrank myself in relationships that fed on my silence.

I was anxious. Confused. Emotionally exhausted. I didn’t have the words to explain what I was feeling — or why I felt like I was constantly fighting myself.

Then at 39, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. That moment didn’t fix everything, but it helped me understand myself for the first time. It explained the chaos, the forgetfulness, the emotional flooding, the years of masking.

But even more than that — it helped me begin coming back to myself.

🕊 What “Wig Girl Interrupted” Means

This blog is my space to speak what was once unspoken — about identity, trauma, healing, and transformation.

The name Wig Girl Interrupted represents the pause I’ve lived in for far too long.

Interrupted by alopecia. By toxic relationships. By silence.

Now, I’m writing my way out of that interruption.

Here, I’ll talk about:

  • Life with alopecia and wigs
  • Living with ADHD (and the shame that comes with it)
  • Healing from emotional abuse
  • Rebuilding identity after years of people-pleasing
  • Finding my voice — even when it shakes

💛 If You’re Here, Thank You

If you’ve ever felt like your brain, body, or heart didn’t work the way they were “supposed” to…

If you’ve lost yourself in a relationship, a diagnosis, or the pressure to be everything for everyone…

If you’ve felt interrupted — by life, grief, shame, or silence — this blog is for you.

I don’t have all the answers. But I promise to be real.

If you’re new here, I recommend you Start Here.

Thank you for being here. I can’t wait to grow together.

With love,

Jenna

🪞 Healing is easier when we don’t do it alone. Pass this along to someone who needs to feel seen.

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