tempelton
Member
(Note: I posted the following already in the general Intro thread, but I thought, heck, why not also post it as a new thread! Yes, living dangerously, I know! 
)
Hello all,
I have a tendency to go on and on if given a platform, but I'm going to try and keep this uncharacteristically short here...
I am 35 years old (I'll be 36 on Monday!) and from Ireland. I currently live in the States with my wife. Yes, I'm married but that doesn't change the fact that I have very severe social anxiety and have had since I was a teenager. I met my wife through pen-pal means (back in the olden days of the 1990's!) and so got to know her like that, prior to plucking up the courage to meet. But, I have been unable to repeat that pattern with friends. I am too fearful and too nervous about how I am perceived by others to ever really take a chance.
I have tried several times over the years to meet people, but every time I did so, it just went nowhere at all, probably because of my unease in the situation (as opposed to people necessarily disliking my personality, though I am not sure). Either way, my latest foray into trying to get better was to attend a therapist last year, but that seemed to just peter out (for the time being at least), without any significant changes having being achieved.
I have to admit, I think I'm stuck with this condition of mine. It sucks, because I constantly compare myself to others and I crave what they have, in terms of friends and opportunities for adventure. I do still try to achieve what it is that I think I might be capable of in life (including running and writing in at least an oh-so-semi-serious way), but some days I assume it's just delusion and fumes that keep me going even in those most precious of areas for me.
I am up and down with depression because of all of this and getting older certainly doesn't help (I feel like the trap is tightening around me). I am not sure that there is a solution as such for me (damaged, I guess you could say, from an early age and in a number of ways), though there may well be for others. Acceptance and flourishing within the shadows as best I can might be the most I can hope for, I don't know.
But then again, everything changes eventually. Why not this too? Perhaps it can. But today is not the day of change. Today is one of those days when my symptoms and my fears are as clear to me as rat blisters under a microscope. I hate these days and I wait for the days of delusion and fumes to return.
That's me. I've said too much again, as usual!
Anyway, pleased to meet you all...
)Hello all,
I have a tendency to go on and on if given a platform, but I'm going to try and keep this uncharacteristically short here...
I am 35 years old (I'll be 36 on Monday!) and from Ireland. I currently live in the States with my wife. Yes, I'm married but that doesn't change the fact that I have very severe social anxiety and have had since I was a teenager. I met my wife through pen-pal means (back in the olden days of the 1990's!) and so got to know her like that, prior to plucking up the courage to meet. But, I have been unable to repeat that pattern with friends. I am too fearful and too nervous about how I am perceived by others to ever really take a chance.
I have tried several times over the years to meet people, but every time I did so, it just went nowhere at all, probably because of my unease in the situation (as opposed to people necessarily disliking my personality, though I am not sure). Either way, my latest foray into trying to get better was to attend a therapist last year, but that seemed to just peter out (for the time being at least), without any significant changes having being achieved.
I have to admit, I think I'm stuck with this condition of mine. It sucks, because I constantly compare myself to others and I crave what they have, in terms of friends and opportunities for adventure. I do still try to achieve what it is that I think I might be capable of in life (including running and writing in at least an oh-so-semi-serious way), but some days I assume it's just delusion and fumes that keep me going even in those most precious of areas for me.
I am up and down with depression because of all of this and getting older certainly doesn't help (I feel like the trap is tightening around me). I am not sure that there is a solution as such for me (damaged, I guess you could say, from an early age and in a number of ways), though there may well be for others. Acceptance and flourishing within the shadows as best I can might be the most I can hope for, I don't know.
But then again, everything changes eventually. Why not this too? Perhaps it can. But today is not the day of change. Today is one of those days when my symptoms and my fears are as clear to me as rat blisters under a microscope. I hate these days and I wait for the days of delusion and fumes to return.
That's me. I've said too much again, as usual!
Anyway, pleased to meet you all...
