46 - Museum outing

I experiences my first failure during an outing at the museum this morning: indeed, I do not remember any other time when a museum experience caused me particular problems with my social phobias. I hate to queue to get in, but once inside, it goes very well. People are well-behaved, quiet and are concerned about the exposed art - not by me.

I even visited the Louvre and Guimet in Paris, but I noticed tonight that sometimes the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder has a perverse effect because I am 100% aware of my difficulties. I live each day reading about the subject or listening to videos and testimonials about it, and their omnipresence obsesses me and focuses my attention to the fact that I have social phobias and they are definitely there ...




In my defense I must nevertheless point out that this is the first time I stumble on a guided tour in a small space of a museum that I had never visited previously and knowing neither exits nor anything else didn't helped decompress and reassure me with a possible exit...

I did not panic, I just refocused on paintings I had seen. A withdrawal from the group whose intention was focused on the guide, and as I never dare interrupting to apologize, I saw myself forced to retreat and await their progression, liberating  my path ; I thus avoided the panic attack that I felt rising in me - especially as I was cut off from my two references: my wife and a friend who had gone ahead and crossed the group in question without incident ... While behind, I was thinking either of backtracking and heading where we came from,  or facing panic ...

I think that despite my inability to get through the group, having well acted by refocusing on art, not runinng away. 
I consider this a less  drastic reaction than the total escape from this unexpected blockage...

I found myself the only person with a big camera in the room ... some people were taking pictures with their smartphone / iphone and this gap blocked my inspiration to photograph, especially as the majority of the self-portraits in this exhibit did not inspire me either ... 

I managed a little before putting my camera in its bag, only to take it out again once I joined my wife and friend, to take their pics as well as what I consider the best of piece in this exhibit. 

it lifted my morale a bit and I forgot the feeling of failure, replacing it by the decision that it was a mixed experience.

I'll repeat what I said in my post on shopping: if you see someone move forward and backward in a museum, it may be a person who suffers from anxiety or social phobia. We are not doing this to annoy you... we have difficulties and we do as we can with our limits ... thank you for leniency and do not attack us in relation to this, we have enough with our own prejudices regarding our phobias ... (and yes, I've heard derogatory stuff, certainly not in the museum, so I specify my thought)