Having become recently aware of my own social anxiety disorder, I've been reading with interest the "Anxiety" opinion series in the New York Times. (For those who haven't seen it, you can check it out here.) The most recent entry, by professor and author Daniel Smith, includes this passage: "Like many people who have been given a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder (and many who have not), I am always braced for the next recurrence. Anxiety, like the tide, is forever receding and returning, receding and returning. I have been experiencing this pattern for nearly 20 years now, so that my anxiety has come to seem, at times, inevitable and unassailable — a fait accompli. My anxiety, I’d concluded, is what I am. There is no escape." Being new to this, I've been thinking a lot about how social anxiety affects one's sense of identity. (Short digression: When I say I'm "new" to social anxiety, I mean that I'm new to the knowledge that there's a name for this condition, and that communities, such as this one, exist for those dealing with anxiety. I'm not new to the feelings. Those have been with me as long as I can remember.) While I always knew I was, to put it kindly, quirkier-than-most, this is the first time that I've had a label to put on it, and an explanation for why I feel and behave the way that I do. I'm finding that this newfound awareness has both benefits and drawbacks.…