It should not be at all surprising that shy people don’t speak up about their problems, but if they could, their most important message would be that shyness is a 24/7 hour affliction and has little in common  with the shy feeling most people experience every once in a while.  Approximately one in ten people suffer from persistent shyness and no health insurance plan covers treatment for it.

Recently many public venues have discussed characteristics of shyness, and while they are done by well-meaning persons they are by professionals and they don’t seem to quite get it. A good example is the front cover article in a recent Time magazine.

The article is called The Power of (shyness) sic — the use of parenthesis in the title is perplexing, but it is chilling for the shy person to see the title because most of them are painfully aware they have little to no power.  The image on the cover under the questionable title is of a small boy uneasily glancing outward, holding a mega horn by his side. Once shy readers read the article, it becomes even more uncomfortable for them to discover that it’s about professionals who chiefly discuss introverts, and that the shy boy on the cover with the mega horn doesn’t get to use it after all.