Hi, from a Newbie..

[sarebear24]

Hi everyone, I just registered for this site and wanna say hello.


I've read a couple of peoples posts and can empathise with many. Have most people on here just made a self diagnosis, or have they actually gone to a psychologist to determine that they have S.P?? I'm from Adelaide.

 

[sarebear24]

do you think you are better than you used to be?

 

[JWH]

Self diagnosis here. I mean it's not too hard to diagnose when you spend your life indoors!

 

[wistful_dementia]

100% bonafied... it took alot of strength for me just to make the initial appointment, because of the stigma attached to having a mental prob. Ohhh, about 30 years before I saw a counselor for longer than 2 visits. And it tool a few months to become comfortable, to make things worse she was a very nice and attractive young woman. I was expecting an old man wearing a white coat... :lol:

In anycase she was helpful... it is possible to help yourself of course, but it is also nice for someone to assist you on how to help yourself correctly... to loose my arrogance and get another perspective. Plus, it was nice to just have a semi-objective ear to listen to me. I knew her being human, she may have some personal opinions, but this was her job and I knew my probs would stay in the office... so there was that saftey factor. She helped alot in that I could finally go out in public without feeling extreme anxiety... and I also made progress in making small talk with people that I am not familiar with... very small talk, but still talk.

I am glad that I saw her... she was an intern- graduated with a masters... and my insurance expired... so that was the end of my counseling days. Now it is time for me to stop procrastinating and to keep on forcing myself to communicate and forcing myself to expose myself to new people.

 

[Horatio]

Hi welcome to the site, I am resembly new myself

Ive been diagnosed proffesionally. Im a long term sufferer of depression and was unaware that social phobia was even a possibility. I just put it down to me being a loser until I was diagnosed with it by a psyciatrist two years ago

 

[terresap]

Hi Sarebear

and

to the forum, its great to have another aussie here
I am self diagnosed and went to the doctor to confirm it. Im going to see a psychologist in a few weeks (hopefully :wink: )
How about you Sarebear?

 

[FruitLooPs]

Hello and welcome

I only was diagnosed a few weeks ago by a psychologist, also a resonably attractive one like wistful, i spent the whole time studyin everything in the room except her haha.

To make matters worse I let them use me in a social phobia study, which has a research assistant very similar in age to me, also attractive. Arg sitting in a room with just them and having them ask semi probing questions is, well interesting in a rather anxious sweaty disgusting kinda way. It really does help (for me at least) the way you can see them as medical people and not likely to critisize you.

Thankfully I have a very understanding family since my dad has had chronic depression for the last 30 years, and an aunt with OCD. It was actually because they found me rather sad in my room that I found out about the whole matter.

I went to the place originally to see if I had depression, genetic links etc - but they thought off the mark it sounded like a specific social phobia causing the depression, and well here I am I spose.

Sorry for the long post :?