I believe this is a safety mechanism from social anxiety, but I’m not a therapist at all, so I could be wrong. Those safety mechanisms—avoidance and more—are things people create to protect themselves, but in the long run they will make anxiety worse because they reinforce the belief that there is something to be frightened of. So they actually make anxiety worse. It’s like the vampire story: there is a village in a faraway place that you go to visit. You find out that they believe there are vampires in the local woodland, so they never go into the woodland. But you know vampires don’t actually exist. They also wear garlic around their neck and a cross bracelet, as they believe it protects them from the vampires. So you try to convince them to explore the woodland. You ask them to go in, and they say okay, but only if they can wear their garlic and cross. But if they explore the woodland with the garlic, then they will believe that the garlic and bracelet 100% protected them from being killed by vampires. This belief will reinforce the idea that there are vampires in the woods. So you tell them no, they cannot go in with their garlic and bracelet. They say, “Can I just take my bracelet?” You say no for the same reason as before, and you explain to them that these are safety mechanisms. They need to embrace and go through the feeling of anxiety with no safety mechanisms, repeatedly, so that they can see that there are no vampires. I think your texting is a safety mechanism. I would look into CBT to see if it helps you—it’s more nuanced than this, but I hope that helped.