New Member

Ladystardust

Active member
Hi I am Lady stardust (Any BOWIE fans out there?) I only recently discovered this site on Friday and have have only recently found out that I have social phobia. However I believe I have sufferd from it all my life I am almost 48. I am having a very difficult time at the moment mainly because I have very little support at all. I do not take medication for my condition so as a consequence the doctors have no interest in me. I belong to the local congregation of Jehovahs Witnesses and while they are I suppose in general they are caring people many of them do not understand my difficulties. I do have a really wonderful consellor but I need people besides him. I also get very depressed and feel very isolated at times. I am not totally housebound I can do some things like go out in public I am using a public computer at this very moment in my local library. But I know I am safe in here no one will try to make contact with me. I do have great difficulty in making contact with others even my fellow christians because I find relationships fraut with danger. I have one close friend at my congregation who really has tried to help me despite not really understanding. However in the last few weeks he has had to go away for a few weeks. I have been very lonely without him. The major problem is I think in three areas :-

1 people simply do not want to get involved with me long term they see my problem as something they would rather not know about I supposed it's just they don't want to commit themselves to what they see may be a long term thing put simply they do not have the time.
2 People keep saying to me "If you have never had it you can't understand it" can you imagine how isolated those words make me feel?
3 I think people in general are afraid of me because most people are wary about things to do with the mind.

Anway that is all for now by coming here I hope I will feel less alone
 

12BhaP

Member
I know how it feels

Hello LadyStardust,
Welcome to the forum, I'm also new as well. I can certainly understand what you are going through. Outgoing, 'normal' people don't have a clue as to how we feel inside, they just suppose that everyone is supposed to be 'normal', so when you show signs of being different then, that's exactly how they treat you. I have fully felt the sting of ostracisation, pardon my spelling if I'm wrong, you feel as if you're on the outside looking in, it feels awful I know. We are here for you, so let us know how you're doing.
 

Anonymous

Well-known member
I believe that almost everybody knows what social anxiety is like, because they have all had "social anxiety" in the past but worked through it. What is teenage angst but "social anxiety"?

The new DSM calls it a "disorder" only when it "interferes with the way you want to live so that you seek a therapists." See how circular it is? It is only a disorder if you want to change - many people feel the way you feel but think it is normal and don't care to be any different.

When talking to others, the key is to find points of commonality - people know about public speaking anxiety. People also know about other forms of anxiety -- the feeling of needing to "hold oneself back" from throwing themselves off the top of a building. The feeling of needing to resist turning the car into oncoming traffic. The fear of harming small babies while holding them. Anxiety can be very disturbing, and there is not a person on earth who does not know what it feels like.

People pretend not to understand because they don't want to reveal their own hidden fears.
 
Top