“Something that I find incredibly ironic is that I’m actually terrified of people,” sophomore Jade Flores said. “I’m very scared to talk to people, but everyone seems to think that I’m this big social being, but I’m actually scared of it. I’m just scared that whatever I say is always being analyzed. You think that all everyone has is constant judgment on you. I mean, I’m in high school, and I do go to a public school, and in the things I’m involved with, I kind of have to talk to people in order to successfully get where I want to go. So I do feel a little bit of pressure sometimes to be social, but I also think I make myself, because I think it’s better for me to not be scared of people. I mean, they’re everywhere. I have to remind myself every day that it’s really a blessing that I’m at the place that I’m at, that I’m able to have options to be social with people, that my anxiety isn’t so bad that I’m able to put myself out into position. Literally the way I force myself to do it, how I make myself actually want to talk and interact with people is I say I’m doing this for the people that don’t have a voice for themselves. I’m being weird so they don’t have to be, because they’re too scared to. The hardest part of this social anxiety is the initial first person you speak to, because after that, everything else just becomes easier. You’re able to find certain people that make you feel not as inadequate in a social setting.”