I never thought of myself as shy.

But once I understood shyness, as an adult, I instantly recognized it as something I’d coped with for years. In fact, I realized that shyness had shaped many of my thoughts, feelings, and actions since I was a kid.

Many shy adults can pinpoint the exact moment when they transformed from a happy-go-lucky kid to a shy, withdrawn child. As I explained earlier, this response to a traumatic event was a coping mechanism that made them feel safe. They withdrew to prevent themselves from feeling traumatized again.

My story is a little bit different, and falls more on the “nature” side of the nature-nurture spectrum. I can’t pinpoint the moment I started acting and feeling shy (nurture). It was always sort of there.

On the outside, I didn’t seem shy as a child. In fact, when I was a kid I had friends, could assert myself with them, participated in class, and pretty much rolled with the punches in a large family.

But that outgoing exterior belied how I felt in many situations.

I was anxious a lot, although as a kid I didn’t know what that term meant, couldn’t identify that feeling, or understand how it affected me. I worried a lot, especially about failing at new tasks, failing in school. I got head aches and stomach aches, but was told that I was making them up as an excuse to avoid going to school, for example. That just confused me even more — I felt sick, physically sick, so how could I be inventing it? — and led me to distrust my experiences, my instincts. Perhaps I was physically wired to be anxious or highly sensitive, but because my anxiety wasn’t addressed as a kid, I didn’t know how to deal with it.

Plus, I disliked too much attention and didn’t know how to take a compliment. So when adults I didn’t know well tried to hug me or fuss over me — something that happened a lot because I’m the youngest child and naturally got babied by well-meaning relatives and family friends — I didn’t know how to handle it. Plus, all of that attention conflicted with my Catholic upbringing, which taught me that no one, even cute little me, was better than anyone else.

All of these conflicting messages — internal and external — confused me, naturally. But I didn’t know how to clear things up. My older siblings seemed confident, grown up, not hampered by my internal fears and worries. My parents, although loving, weren’t exactly the touchy-feely types who could understand, let alone notice, how fearful I felt. In our house, we were expected to get on with things without complaint.

So I spent a lot of my younger years feeling vulnerable and shy. Sure, I had friends and everything was okay with them. But in more challenging situations, I simply didn’t know what to do. I was a kid, so I didn’t have the self-awareness or social skills or experience to manage them. So I bluffed my way through them, but felt shy inside. I worried myself sick, had trouble sleeping, couldn’t reach out for help. I was a shy kid who couldn’t simply fess up to being shy and therefore put a label to my feelings and experiences. If I had, I wouldn’t have felt so alone. If I had, I would have gotten help. (At least, I hope I would have gotten help, and not felt shamed for being shy.)

And that’s the curse of shyness, isn’t it? That shy people are surrounded by shy people every day yet we never realize it because shyness is so isolating. Let’s change that.

QUESTION: Do you think you are shy because of a traumatic event? Do you feel you were wired to be anxious and fearful in some social settings? Or is your shyness a result of a combination of factors that resulted in shy feelings and behavior?