# How do you deal with texting anxiety?



## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

Instant messaging anxiety, to be more exact. So I have very bad social anxiety when it comes to instant messaging. It never used to be a huge problem for me as I've always had this habit of staying away from instant messaging until I got this part-time job whereby instant messaging is required as part of the job and I would constantly communicate with my boss via instant messaging. My boss works remotely so I've never seen my boss in person before so literally the only way to communicate with my boss is via instant messaging, but all those instant messaging is stressing me out. Now the worst part about those instant messaging apps, is that each time I'm typing out a message the other person can see me online and they can see the "typing" word appearing which only worsens my anxiety as I'll often need between 20 minutes to 1 hour to type out messages due to my anxiety and I didn't like people seeing me taking such a long time to type out a text. So I'll often wait till people are offline before sending them texts but sometimes they will suddenly come online when I'm in the middle of typing a text and this ended up triggering my anxiety and causing me a bunch of panic attacks. 

My anxiety is so bad that I think people have started seeing me as a weirdo, as people would see the "typing" word appearing and they would wait ages for me to type out a message only to notice me typing messages for 3 seconds and then pausing for 10 seconds and the entire cycle keeps repeating itself until I didn't end up sending anything out. I'll keep re-reading and re-reading messages and keep editing and editing messages without sending anything out until the person on the receiving end started to think that I'm nuts for taking such a long time to write a simple message. This is how bad my anxiety is.

How do you deal with texting anxiety, especially when it comes to instant messaging?


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Schizoid said:


> Instant messaging anxiety, to be more exact. So I have very bad social anxiety when it comes to instant messaging. It never used to be a huge problem for me as I've always had this habit of staying away from instant messaging until I got this part-time job whereby instant messaging is required as part of the job and I would constantly communicate with my boss via instant messaging. My boss works remotely so I've never seen my boss in person before so literally the only way to communicate with my boss is via instant messaging, but all those instant messaging anxiety is stressing me out. Now the worst part about those instant messaging apps, is that each time I'm typing out a message the other person can see me online and they can see the "typing" word appearing which only worsens my anxiety as I'll often need between 20 minutes to 1 hour to type out messages due to my anxiety and I didn't like people seeing me taking such a long time to type out a text. So I'll often wait till people are offline before sending them texts but sometimes they will suddenly come online when I'm in the middle of typing a text and this ended up triggering my anxiety.
> 
> My anxiety is so bad that I think people have started seeing me as a weirdo, as people would see the "typing" word appearing and they would wait ages for me to type out a message only to notice me typing messages for 3 seconds and then pausing for 10 seconds and the entire cycle keeps repeating itself until I didn't end up sending anything out. I'll keep re-reading and re-reading messages and keep editing and editing messages without sending anything out until the person on the receiving end started to think that I'm nuts for taking such a long time to write a simple message. This is how bad my anxiety is.
> 
> How do you deal with texting anxiety, especially when it comes to instant messaging?


What about texting gives you anxiety? Can you buy yourself some time? Tell them you're in the middle of something and you'll get back to them as soon as you can. 

How about having some "canned" messages? I mean, have some responses already stored in your phone so you can simply copy and paste them and not have to worry about formulating a specific answer right away? 

What if you keep a small paper notebook and pen, so you can physically write down your responses on that, and then just transcribe them into the Instant Messaging, so they won't see that "typing" icon? 









6 Strategies That Will Help With Texting Anxiety • Dochas Psychological Services Inc.


Texting anxiety can is more common than we think. Here are some techniques to help you set boundaries with text messaging.




www.dochaspsych.com













In an instant messaging world, a delayed response is anxiety inducing


"Step away from the phone."




mashable.com













What To Do If Texting Stresses You The Hell Out


If group chats overwhelm you or short responses make you anxious, these expert tips can help.




www.huffpost.com













What Is Texting Anxiety and How Is It Affecting Your Relationship?


Read this if being constantly connected to your phone and social media stresses you out, and find out how to combat texting anxiety




www.brides.com







https://www.cbc.ca/life/culture/why-does-digital-messaging-cause-so-much-anxiety-1.4819500


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## Kelly Kapowski (Apr 26, 2018)

tanstaafl28 said:


> What about texting gives you anxiety? Can you buy yourself some time? Tell them you're in the middle of something and you'll get back to them as soon as you can.
> 
> How about having some "canned" messages? I mean, have some responses already stored in your phone so you can simply copy and paste them and not have to worry about formulating a specific answer right away?
> 
> ...


These are really great suggestions, @tanstaafl28. You’re a thoughtful guy & quick to find/pull together solutions to problems.


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

tanstaafl28 said:


> What about texting gives you anxiety? Can you buy yourself some time? Tell them you're in the middle of something and you'll get back to them as soon as you can.
> 
> How about having some "canned" messages? I mean, have some responses already stored in your phone so you can simply copy and paste them and not have to worry about formulating a specific answer right away?
> 
> ...


Thanks for the detailed response and also for those helpful resources! 
And I would say that everything about instant messaging gives me anxiety, whether it's hearing the notification that I've received a message, or during those times when people noticed that I'm typing out a message to them. And I can't switch off the notifications, as my job had specifically requested me to switch on the notifications, so I'll sometimes just avoid looking at my phone when I heard the notifications of an incoming message. So I've somewhat found a way to cope with the notifications thing by avoid looking at my phone, so currently my only issue is during those times when people noticed I'm typing out a message to them.
As for buying myself some time, this would work for non-urgent messages such as my boss asking if I'm free to work on certain days, but my boss will also sometimes send me some more urgent messages that requires an immediate responses especially if there is some work that he wanted me to complete immediately.

And about having "canned" messages, I've been doing that. I would store responses into my phone, and then just copy and paste them, like yesterday I was trying to text my salary to my boss and I just directly copied and pasted it from the "canned" message but then I got too anxious to send that message so I keep editing and editing that message without sending it, and then he suddenly came online and I saw him typing something but then he suddenly stopped typing like he was waiting for me to finish typing and send that message, and yeah I didn't end up sending that message so he ended up seeing me keep "typing" for 3 seconds and keep pausing for 10 seconds without sending him that message, so yeah that entire situation became super weird and I was wondering how to avoid being in such situations in future again.

Hmm and about transcribing my responses from the small paper notebook into instant messaging, I think that would cause me lots of anxiety, as the "typing" icon will still end up appearing when I'm trying to transcribe everything into instant messaging, and I tend to take a long time to type out those words.
Also, there are times when I work till 11:30pm late at night and I wanted to text my boss my salary at the end of the shift, and I wanted to send the text before 12 midnight, and that transcribing thing would be very time-consuming for me since it would take me a bunch of time to write into that notebook and then another extra bunch of time to transcribe into instant messaging and then another bunch of extra time before I can finally gather the courage to send that message, and it would be after 12 midnight by the time I send that message, and it would be weird to text my boss so late at night.
Oh and usually when I worked till 11:30pm, my boss would help me book a cab home, and the car is very dark inside since it's late at night, and it would be hard for me to transcribe messages when I'm inside a dark car.

I think amongst these 3 options, the 2nd option would probably work best for me. The only issue I have with that option is that problem that I encountered yesterday whereby I started panicking and keep editing and editing that message and couldn't send out the message. And I was wondering how to overcome that.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Schizoid said:


> Thanks for the detailed response and also for those helpful resources!
> And I would say that everything about instant messaging gives me anxiety, whether it's hearing the notification that I've received a message, or during those times when people noticed that I'm typing out a message to them. And I can't switch off the notifications, as my job had specifically requested me to switch on the notifications, so I'll sometimes just avoid looking at my phone when I heard the notifications of an incoming message. So I've somewhat found a way to cope with the notifications thing by avoid looking at my phone, so currently my only issue is during those times when people noticed I'm typing out a message to them.
> As for buying myself some time, this would work for non-urgent messages such as my boss asking if I'm free to work on certain days, but my boss will also sometimes send me some more urgent messages that requires an immediate responses especially if there is some work that he wanted me to complete immediately.
> 
> ...


I hope you can work through this. Is it possible for you to talk to a professional about this?


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

Schizoid said:


> Instant messaging anxiety, to be more exact. So I have very bad social anxiety when it comes to instant messaging. It never used to be a huge problem for me as I've always had this habit of staying away from instant messaging until I got this part-time job whereby instant messaging is required as part of the job and I would constantly communicate with my boss via instant messaging. My boss works remotely so I've never seen my boss in person before so literally the only way to communicate with my boss is via instant messaging, but all those instant messaging is stressing me out. Now the worst part about those instant messaging apps, is that each time I'm typing out a message the other person can see me online and they can see the "typing" word appearing which only worsens my anxiety as I'll often need between 20 minutes to 1 hour to type out messages due to my anxiety and I didn't like people seeing me taking such a long time to type out a text. So I'll often wait till people are offline before sending them texts but sometimes they will suddenly come online when I'm in the middle of typing a text and this ended up triggering my anxiety and causing me a bunch of panic attacks.
> 
> My anxiety is so bad that I think people have started seeing me as a weirdo, as people would see the "typing" word appearing and they would wait ages for me to type out a message only to notice me typing messages for 3 seconds and then pausing for 10 seconds and the entire cycle keeps repeating itself until I didn't end up sending anything out. I'll keep re-reading and re-reading messages and keep editing and editing messages without sending anything out until the person on the receiving end started to think that I'm nuts for taking such a long time to write a simple message. This is how bad my anxiety is.
> 
> How do you deal with texting anxiety, especially when it comes to instant messaging?


@tanstaafl28 gave some really great suggestions.

Also, cognitive behavioral therapy can be really helpful for anxiety and phobias like this. It might help for you to learn some about it and try to apply some techniques to this particular anxiety/phobia you have.

A book I've worked with is called The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Edmund Bourne

It's also been recommended to me by other people who suffer from various anxieties, ocd like behavior, and phobias. I don't know which edition, but there are some really inexpensive used copies, so I recommend it. 










It might ask you to think about what the worst thing that could happen would be...like say you sent a text that you weren't ready to send. What would happen? And then think about how bad that really would be. Is it something you'd be able to recover from? Probably. Would it be as bad as you imagine? Probably not.

Etc. Basically just different ways to work through phobias and anxiety by reasoning.

I think it could be really useful for you.

But I also was going to suggest just writing out the response on another document program and then copy/pasting it, or else just writing it out on a pad and paper would be easy too. But I do recommend this book and it's helped other people too. I should probably read it again but I don't remember where I put it. I have some social anxiety and I HATE texting people, but I don't have as much anxiety as you do. Still, I could benefit from working on it too--because it's probably kind of exhausting to extend so much emotional energy on something like that. And CBT helps you to think through it consciously and free up some of that emotional energy, imo.

But I think that if you ask yourself "what is the worst that could happen?" You might find that you are worrying about something that likely wouldn't be that bad. I mean, what is the worst you would write?

Are you going to write something like "I want you to be my valentine?" to your boss? And even if you did write such a ridiculous thing, what could you say after--he'd probably be like "what are you talking about?" And you could just say "Oh sorry--that was meant for my girlfriend" or something...idk...so maybe really think about the worst that could happen, how likely that is to happen, and whether you'd be able to react or what you'd do. Because I bet most of your texts are fine--even if you spent two seconds on a text it'd probably be fine. But I compulsively edit too so I get where you're coming from. It's a pain in the butt.


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## Bella2016 (Mar 5, 2013)

I often start typing a message to someone and get distracted and then come back to it later (meaning it looks like I'm writing for a long time). They will probably assume you are multi-tasking as this is probably quite common, so I wouldn't worry about it at all. It's highly unlikely they would have any idea what is actually going on for you.


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## emmabrown (Nov 23, 2021)

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## greyskies01 (Aug 23, 2018)

I used to have texting anxiety too. But then I realized I simply had low self esteem. A book that really helped was "The Six Pillars of Self Esteem"


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## singingamy (Dec 5, 2021)

I don't use texting for personal purposes too often. For business purposes i use slack. It is super easy to send sms from slack and everything works automatically. The system sends important information to the whole team without me having to inform every single member personally.


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