Childhood and SA

[Emma03]

I was just wondering if anybody feels the way they were raised as a child has contributed to their social anxiety? My parents have been divorced since I was very young and instead of doing normal "kid stuff", I was always at my dad's on the weekends and never was able to develop good relationships with other kids. And while my mom had good intentions, she was very overprotective and I was never allowed to do anything. I'm not really looking for something to blame..just needed to vent a little bit, because I get angry about this sometimes. I feel like I never learned how to develop relationships with people throughout my childhood, and then I was thrown out into the world expected to magically know all this social stuff.

 

[vj288]

Um maybe for me. I have a "Life-threatening peanut allergy"(as my mom always said) and was my parents first so they were very overprotective of me, especially my mother. At the same time I don't think they tried to mold me at all either, which I think may have contributed as well. I moved in 1st grade so that may have had something to do with it too. My dad always like to identify our family as "anti-social," which is a mentality I don't think helped at all, and my mother is very reserved and timid and may have rubbed off on me a little. Other stuff too maybe, but I think it was mostly my own doing, not theirs.

 

[LovelyAmor]

I feel like I never learned how to develop relationships with people throughout my childhood, and then I was thrown out into the world expected to magically know all this social stuff.

This statement is SO true with me. My dad was never around though. He left when I was 7. My mom mentally and emotionally abused me throughout my childhood. She picked on me worse than the kids at school. She always talked about my weight. I mean it was enough that I was being harassed at school, but then I have to go home and endure more. My mom was so pessimistic ALL the time. She was extremely overprotective. She never really taught me how to socialize with other kids my age, or even people in general.

My grandmother was always there for me and did her best but I feel like my mom always got in the way. My grandmother paid for everything single thing that I ever had. She did everything for me while my mom just lounged around. The funny thing is, my mom has a college degree (political science), so its not like she was a druggie or a drop out, she was just evil and gave up on dealing with life. I believe she had some kind of mental illness. When I was in high school I discovered I had SA and I had to see a psychiatrist and a therapist. I had to take anti-depressants. It was rough but I actually graduated.

My grandmother passed away suddenly (severe stroke) two years ago, and my grandfather followed (alzheimers - mostly because my grandmother was gone) a year after. (I lived with both of them, including my mom). I never thought my mom wanted me. Interestingly, right after my grandmother passed, she told me that she wasn't ready for me and that she took me to an adoption agency and left me there for a few days. She came back to get me because God told her to. What hurt me the most is that she didn't say it was because she wanted to. I believe that my grandmother was the only one who ever really loved me.

Since my mom never had a job and now CAN'T get one because she has a disability, the house was repossessed. My grandmother was the ONLY one I was ever close to. I have trouble showing emotion and affection with people. I cannot connect with people emotionally. It's really terrible. She is with my aunt in california now and im a sophomore in college. My GPA isn't so good, but im trying to bring it up. I have a HARD time relating to the other students here. I don't feel connected with them.

My major is Criminal Justice and I want to be a Lawyer. Yes, a Lawyer with SA, crazy huh? She (mom) gets on me a lot about socializing with people and it makes her mad that I have a hard time doing it. I guess she has become afraid that the way she treated me has caused me to be like this now. She looks down on me and tells me I make excuses. It frustrated me because she says im using her as a crutch. She expects me to magically be able to talk to people, hang out, attend functions, and everything else on campus. Crazy huh?

So sorry for all this rambling but I needed to get it out. ​

 

[hoddesdon]

Yes, absolutely, but I do not want to go into details other than to say that sexual abuse was not involved.

 

[punklove]

Yes.

My parents seperated just after I was born.
I became completly attached to my mom... as in I developed extreme seperation anxiety with her. My mom is the exact opposite of me when it comes to social situations. She's not scared to say anything to anyone and trust me you'll know when my mom enters a room. Because of that I feel like she did all the talking for me and she would often finish a sentence or cut me off all the time. I grew used to my mom being the gregarious one and me being the recluse and it's been that way for a very long time now.

 

[Emma03]

Thank you for sharing your experiences

 

[Acegame]

When i was young my mom was very judgemental. She often critisized me or got mad for no clear reason. Thinking back on those days i think she was depressed allot. She was a housewife and didnt take pride in doing that. Besides that she had some unprocessed childhood memories. All these factors had its grip on the relationship between my parents as well. Also she got cancer when i was 10 which i found hard to handle. Fortunatly she recovered from that and that made her feel good about herself. Few years later she started to study psychology which she completed. Now she is like a different person. My sister, who is 8 years younger than me, really benefited from her being reborn.

I admire her for what she has accomplished, but i do think i have suffered from all this. I never told her i feel that way though, because I don't blame her for anything and i dont want to make her feel bad. But a year ago she told me that she feels she made mistakes raising me.

 

[kihira]

My dad was an alcoholic, he was really over friendly, irrational and embarassing when he was drunk - mostly on the weekends. I had friends in the neighbourhood who would come around too much, making it all unbearable. I regretfully broke my friendships with them, rather than have it all continue. We also moved around a bit and I went to five different schools, so friendships were broken there, too.

Grade 5 onwards was at all-boy schools - by my teens I was very girl shy. I first noticed my social anxiety in grade 6 when I was elected to a student position that involved talking in meetings - I couldn't do it. Being raised a catholic put a load of nonsense in my headand made me anxious on different levels. At college I took a mixed class that involved reading my book report in front of the class. I was so nervous of the girls in that class that I never read the book, let alone do a report on it, and I dropped out of college mid way.

In high school I experienced something that I think killed off any childhood wonder that I still had inside me. This may have been a catalyst for ongoing anxiety as I can feel it affecting me now as I type. My grandmother (mother's side) lived nearby and I would sometimes go to visit her. On this day my mum was away for the day. I knocked on my grandmother's door and there was no answer.

Thinking that she may have fallen I found the spare key and went in. She must have had a stroke when getting up in the night and was lying across the bed, dead. Seeing her was the biggest shock I have ever had and I ran out of there in absolute terror. A neighbour saw me and took control of it all. When I got home my dad handled it by getting very drunk. My mum, feeling her own grief, asked if i was ok, but nothing more. I was strongly affected by this for months. PTSD? maybe.

Yes, my childhood has contributed to my SA

 

[3lefts]

I'm thinking everyone's childhood contributed in some way...