When Ophelia Nichols, better known as Mama Tot on TikTok, responded to a comment from one of her videos with a video all about social anxiety, she began to get emotional. The famous mom on TikTok opened up and revealed that she knows how it feels to deal with social anxiety and explained how and when it started for her.
Mama Tot Knows What It Feels Like To Have Social Anxiety
Responding to the comment, “My social anxiety issues are terrible now,” Nichols opens up about how it also affects her in a recent TikTok video.
“I did not have social anxiety until this,” Nichols said, referring to her fame on the social media app. “And I can pinpoint exactly when it started in September when I was in Panama City on my girls’ trip.”
Nichols explained that while on that trip, she was “swarmed by a lot of people at the pool,” While she loves to meet anyone who enjoys her content, it was a lot all at once.
“I didn’t feel very protected. And with that social anxiety, I have thought, ” Does everybody like me here? What if it’s someone that doesn’t like me? What if somebody wants to hurt me,” she continued.
“There are actually hate groups that people will make of you, and they take things too far, and you just never know what somebody might want to do to you just because they don’t like you.”
Because of that realization, Nichols often struggles with negative thoughts when moments like that occur.
“You give me a microphone and a stage for public speaking, especially if I can speak from the heart; I’m good as gold,” she said. “I’ll take a showdown. But, like in, being in a crowd and many people coming at me at once, I’ve developed this social anxiety that I can’t kick. And it didn’t happen until this, you know.”
Nichols reiterated that she loves to meet any of her followers but can’t help but think of the what-ifs if someone isn’t a fan. “You hope that you say the right thing and do the right thing, and even if you’re just being yourself, you can’t always make everybody happy with everything,” she continued. “You know, that plays a lot into my internal worrying about myself.”
That’s when she began letting her emotions flow and wondered why she was so important.
“Am I good enough, or you know, why am I so important?” she said. “I don’t think of myself as somebody important or something. I’m just me, so I go out about my day as just me, normal me, and a lot of times, I can’t do that as I used to.”
Mama Tot’s Followers Can Relate To Her Social Anxiety Struggles
Many of Mama Tot’s loyal followers dropped into the comment section to leave words of encouragement and support and express how relatable the topic of social anxiety is for them.
One person reminded Nichols about another incident that happened in September. “You were also being attacked by another creator last Sept. I’m sure that added to the anxiety. BTW you are more than good enough 💕,” they wrote. Nichols responded, “Definitely.”
Another follower shared what caused her struggle with anxiety. “Mine was when I became a stay-at-home mom! So isolated,” she wrote, to which Nichols replied, “And that’s not rare either! I’ve what’d that before 🥺.”
One follower recently saw Mama Tot while she was in Vegas and wrote, “Definitely understand it, and I recognized it at the pool at the Palms and left you alone even though I wanted to meet you. 🥰”
Another Nichols fan reminded her, “Being ‘just me’ is EXACTLY what we love about you!! We are ALL perfectly imperfect, and we love that in you. You are exactly enough. 🥰🥰🥰”
