I was once known by classmates and teachers to be shy. I don't know if this was due to my personality or my lack of self confidence. Today, I have overcame my social anxiety so I think the roots of my shyness in my earlier years was due to the latter.

I came to America with my family as refugees when I was seven years old. I didn't enjoy the class activities because I couldn't understand them; I had a hard time communicating with others. I slowly comprehended the assignments but I was still performing poorly compared to my fellow classmates. I wouldn't volunteer to do anything, and only got involved when asked.  When my name was called, I would become really nervous. My heart began to beat violently, and my stomach turned into knots. My jaws tensed up and I could barely speak. I could feel my face turning beat red, and was sure everyone could see it! My symptoms were the result of me feeling overly conscious of myself. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would form the incorrect sentences, or that I would speak with an accent and others would laugh at me.

Over the years, I found a liking toward reading, especially romance novels. My English improved from this, I surmised. I showed improvements in my academic and this boosted my self esteem largely. Because I got rewards from teachers for my improvements, I continued to do better and began to volunteer to go first for class presentations, just to get over the horror of silent anticipation. I kept receiving encouragements and acknowledgements from my school through certificates for my achievements, and this reduced my shyness.

I still have problems initiating conversations with new people, but if someone were to talk to me, I respond casually, without my heart pounding, or the churning stomach. My family, especially my dad, has helped me tremendously. He always preaches us on self confidence, believing in ourselves, perseverance. Having heard these positive pep talks reinforced confidence in me. And, through personal experiences, I discovered that I'm not the only one who's shy.

I would like to investigate shyness in the medical anthropology sense to see how big a role does culture play toward this, and what are the ways to overcome it. Personally, I've overcame my own fear and so I think anyone can too.

An anthropology's definition of sickness is an unwanted variation in physical, social, and psychological dimensions of health (ANP 204, Summer '13). The course goes on to define disease: outward clinical manifestation of altered physical function/ infection and symptoms could be tested by physician. It defines illness as: human experiences and perceptions of alteration in health (through social/cultural context).

I think aside from the panic attacks, anxiety, a shy person generally is health, and medical tests would be ineffective in identifying the cause of shyness, therefore I presume shyness to be an illness. I will use different anthropological approaches to identify this disorder.