The burden of social anxiety and the welcome of God

The Weight of Performance and Fear

A few weeks ago, I overheard people discussing a dramatic story involving a car accident and someone facing prison time. When I asked if these were people they knew, I learned they were actually characters from The Archers, a long-running BBC Radio drama. This trivial example perfectly captures what it's like to live with autism.

I was diagnosed when I was 18, but many autistic traits are like introvert traits turned up to eleven. Many of us have experienced moments where it feels like we don't have enough information to succeed in an interaction—like everyone else was born knowing the rules except us. It feels like a performance.

Masking and the Fear of Judgment

We call this pressure to fit in and behave in a neurotypical way masking. A lot of my experience with autism revolves around fear: fear in noisy environments, fear when circumstances change unpredictably, fear that other people are looking at me and assessing what I'm doing—and finding it wanting.

This fear grants other people piercing eyes that seem to see exactly how I'm behaving and what's wrong about it. We become convinced that everyone is judging us, that we're constantly being evaluated and found lacking.

The False Promise of Self-Acceptance

You've probably heard of hygge—that Scandinavian trend where we all put on cozy socks and enjoy hot chocolate together. I found a beautiful line in a book about hygge: "It's not a competition. We already love you."

That statement struck me deeply. Imagine the peace that would come from feeling so loved that there's no fear of not performing well enough or doing something wrong. That is the kind of welcome I experienced when I first came to church as a curious but skeptical 19-year-old atheist with no church background.

But here's the thing: the secular message that says "don't worry, you're perfect the way you are—it's other people who have to change" isn't robust enough. If this present version of myself is the perfect and final version, that's actually terrible news.

The Welcome of God

Christians can extend indiscriminate welcome because that's the welcome we've already received from God. I'm sorry if you've heard a version of Christianity that says good people deserve heaven—that just isn't the case at all.

The starting point of Christianity is that none of us deserves anything. Think about what the Creator of the universe must be like and what I am like. How could someone as small as me offer God anything worth having or that He needed?

The welcome of God says: You don't deserve this. You can't behave in such a way as to dispose me well towards you. I made you, and then I made it possible for you to have a relationship with me by Jesus dying in your place. I love you because I choose to.

Created for a Higher Standard

The standard I was made for is to be conformed to the image of God. That standard is infinite, but I have eternity to get there.

Knowing that I am created in God's image has given me a more holistic view of myself and how I fit into the world. God is vast and has so much to say that it takes many different humans to show different angles of who He is. It's okay that I'm like this and others aren't. It's okay that I sometimes lose the power of speech and want to communicate by writing, or that I sometimes need to leave because the noise is overwhelming.

I don't have to perform some kind of normality. My worth doesn't come from my performance at all—it comes from the One I belong to, the One who made me. That comes with considerable freedom.

Freedom from Earning Love

We don't need to do anything to earn God's love because everything that needed doing has already been done on His side. That means we don't have to fear in our relationship with God. We don't have to wonder how He feels about us because He has already told us and shown us.

One of the parts of God's word I find most endearing on this subject is in John's Gospel:

My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

I picture us like little tiny sheep being held safely in God's hand, with Jesus as the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep.

Freedom from the Fear of Others

The reality of this relationship with God also frees me from the fear of other people. I have a long way to grow in this area, but because of God, I don't have to pursue peace by guessing at secret expectations everyone else might have.

I used to think other people had powerful eyes to judge me, as though I was making them into little gods and giving them power over me—as if they had x-ray vision to see all my flaws. I set up the standard that everyone else has to approve of my actions, and I promised myself peace would come if I met it. But then I let that standard control me, and it isn't even true.

How small an idol looks when it comes face to face with the real God. Imagine if there was someone who really did have those powerful eyes, who could see everything about me—and to hear that person say: "It's not a competition. We already love you."