red_pixie
New member
I'm not sure if this is "social anxiety" or not...don't know what you'd call it, but here goes....
I'm a 24 year old female. My mother is bipolar, has been all her life. Throughout my childhood I watched her be on this medication and that, and the way they would affect her moods. It was awful. It took me a long time to understand why she was the way she was.
By the time I was about 10 I was suffering from OCD but I had no idea what it was, or that it had a name. I thought I was the only person who'd ever had it, that it was me, that I was just screwed up. My sister would notice strange things and pick on me -- like that I wouldn't eat the part of the candybar that I'd touched, or that if I saw something "strange" in my food I wouldn't eat it, just take more and pick through it to eat what was "safe". I felt so ashamed, and thought I was a complete weirdo. (It wasn't until I saw "As Good As It Gets" with Jack Nicholson that I realized it WASN'T just me.)
I had several bouts of very severe depression, and I've had long periods of time where I felt perfectly fine -- except that the OCD never seems to COMPLETELY go away -- at its best it mainly consists of rinsing clean dishes. But I've noticed some newer "symptoms" of whatever this is developing over the years...mainly that now I seem to have some sort of anxiety disorder. What happens is, every time I talk, just about, I feel like I've said something stupid. I'm constantly feeling like I'm not like everyone else, that I can't just be normal like them, and that people are noticing that I'm "strange". People sometimes give me strange looks when I speak. It's like I'm not sure exactly how to talk to them. I don't think I was always this way and I have no idea what brought it on, exactly, although there was a period of about a year and a half where I had just gone through something traumatic and wasn't socializing much or even really leaving my room. (I apologize that this is so long.) Anyway, what it boils down to is that I get way too nervous (I had a job interview today and couldn't stop my hands from sweating, and I'm pretty sure I was babbling), I sometimes wonder if I said something or didn't, I'll replay conversations that I've had in my head over and over ALL DAY LONG if I thought I might have said something off or stupid (multiply this times a hundred if I think I did or said more than one dumb thing), I'm constantly washing my hands, and geez... I'm just way too emotional and I get angry too easily and have a really really low libido/no energy to speak of whatsoever...I also have a guilt complex, where I sometimes feel guilty for seemingly no reason and feel that I have this constant need to "confess" The stupidest crap. My boyfriend sees some of how I am, and doesn't like how this affects me, but he doesn't really see even half of what goes on. I try to be quiet about it because most of the time I can control it at least to the point where he doesn't have to suffer more from it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Again I'm sorry this is so long. Please help.
I'm a 24 year old female. My mother is bipolar, has been all her life. Throughout my childhood I watched her be on this medication and that, and the way they would affect her moods. It was awful. It took me a long time to understand why she was the way she was.
By the time I was about 10 I was suffering from OCD but I had no idea what it was, or that it had a name. I thought I was the only person who'd ever had it, that it was me, that I was just screwed up. My sister would notice strange things and pick on me -- like that I wouldn't eat the part of the candybar that I'd touched, or that if I saw something "strange" in my food I wouldn't eat it, just take more and pick through it to eat what was "safe". I felt so ashamed, and thought I was a complete weirdo. (It wasn't until I saw "As Good As It Gets" with Jack Nicholson that I realized it WASN'T just me.)
I had several bouts of very severe depression, and I've had long periods of time where I felt perfectly fine -- except that the OCD never seems to COMPLETELY go away -- at its best it mainly consists of rinsing clean dishes. But I've noticed some newer "symptoms" of whatever this is developing over the years...mainly that now I seem to have some sort of anxiety disorder. What happens is, every time I talk, just about, I feel like I've said something stupid. I'm constantly feeling like I'm not like everyone else, that I can't just be normal like them, and that people are noticing that I'm "strange". People sometimes give me strange looks when I speak. It's like I'm not sure exactly how to talk to them. I don't think I was always this way and I have no idea what brought it on, exactly, although there was a period of about a year and a half where I had just gone through something traumatic and wasn't socializing much or even really leaving my room. (I apologize that this is so long.) Anyway, what it boils down to is that I get way too nervous (I had a job interview today and couldn't stop my hands from sweating, and I'm pretty sure I was babbling), I sometimes wonder if I said something or didn't, I'll replay conversations that I've had in my head over and over ALL DAY LONG if I thought I might have said something off or stupid (multiply this times a hundred if I think I did or said more than one dumb thing), I'm constantly washing my hands, and geez... I'm just way too emotional and I get angry too easily and have a really really low libido/no energy to speak of whatsoever...I also have a guilt complex, where I sometimes feel guilty for seemingly no reason and feel that I have this constant need to "confess" The stupidest crap. My boyfriend sees some of how I am, and doesn't like how this affects me, but he doesn't really see even half of what goes on. I try to be quiet about it because most of the time I can control it at least to the point where he doesn't have to suffer more from it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Again I'm sorry this is so long. Please help.
It's good to know I'm not alone...I'm just so tired of feeling/being this way. I just want to be able to talk to people and not feel like they think I'm nuts.