is it just me

[steve1]

im an old 38 year old and have been in and out of work all my life no job lasting longer than 5 years shortest job 2weeks all down to this nasty social anxiety.Friends and family dont understand or dont want to.I even suffer anxiety round my family which is really depressing . Does anyone get that nasty feeling that they come across as weird,creepy cant look people in the eye as if were hiding some nasty secret ? When you have been to a social gathering you come away talking to yourself going over everything youve said that night. And theres the nasty BULLIES that enjoy seeing you down and depressed imbarrasing you in front of people and you havent got the confidence to speak up for yourself cus you hate yourself.......its one mean illness thats been overlooked for too long. My GP hasnt a clue,put me on anti depresents and sent me to the hospitals mental unit to have me acessed....went counselling but dont think the counsillor was to fammilliar with this illness so couldnt help me...love to hear from anyone...and excuse the spelling

 

[B]

Try to find a clinical psychologist steve. From experience I can say that he or she could be a huge help for you. GP's for the most part don't know jack shet about psychological disorders and counsellors just don't have the years of training and experience that a psychologist or a psychiatrist has. I prefer the psychologists because they don't prescribe meds, but if you think meds could help you either one is worth a shot.

 

[steve1]

Thanks for the advice...can you please tell me how psycologists work? ie what is there methods for helping this illness?Also are you familiar with C.B.T treatments ive heard this form of therapy is helpfull but what puts me off is group therapy as i dont think i could handle that...thanks. steve.

 

[spurs]

the assumption behind CBT is that thoughts directly influence our emotions.
basically CBT gives you techniques to change negative thought patterns.
thereby changing thoughts will change your feelings will change your behaviour.
other techiniques that psychologists recommend are imagery and meditation.
but just talking about your problems with a psychologist is therapeutic in itself. you need to find someone who has experience with SP though.

 

[Alexp]

Hi,

I know exactly what you mean and I've struggled with the same problems my entire life. Everytime I go to any kind of social gathering / party I go over every single thing I've said and beat myself up for not doing / saying what I really wanted to...and those damn bullies..the so called 'friends' that love to walk all over you to make themselves feel good...and the sad part is ..we let them because we feel like we deserve it.

You guys have the right of it..many times psychologists cant / dont really help except try to get you to take the meds (which I dont recommend). A really good psychologist can help..but they are very hard to find.

You know what helped me the most though... is actually understanding my anxiety. Its really a matter of reinforcement thats driving the anxiety...everytime we beat ourselves up and go over what we could have said or done...we reinforce our own fear and anxieties...mostly because we have too high of an expectation of ourselves (especially in a social setting).

There's a site that helped me understand the logical cause of my anxiety (social and generalized) and how to stop the reinforcement and balance my anxiety out... Its www.untroddenmind.com - its long and fairly complicated, but it has a wealth of information for everyone.

Alex

 

[Rachael]

i can definately relate. a good psychologist can really help, and i personally think if you find a good group, group therapy can be one of the most helpful things for SP. its a good place to build your skills and start to understand how other people deal with their problems. you also start to realize that even the most outgoing people often feel just as insecure as you do, they just might be better at concealing it and dealing with it later. as far as meds go...well i havent had any luck, but ive only been on three and people keep telling me that i need to be medicated, because im really a wreck even with them. but ya...i definately think a psychologist could do you a lot of good. good luck with everything. just remember you're never alone.

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi Steve,

I'm 28 and have been out of full-time work for over 5 years, with 2 jobs in between resulting in my being fired (the last one lasted 6 months).
So I understand what it is like.

Just 10 minutes ago I had to go to my centrelink office -that is the name here in Australia for 'welfare' or financial support for the unemployed. I had to clear up a mistake that my doctor made. She had ticked a box on my medical certificate which stated that she thought I could work for more than 8 hours a week. Now, I have a good reason to believe this was a MISTAKE, and yet in the centrelink office today, the officer dealing with the now mess-up was pretty irritable and rude towards me.

This isn't the first time either. Perhaps there is something within people that makes them 'hate' those who are down-and-out especially when they have some mental illness. Because twice already I have been treated pretty rudily by their officers there.

I think that knowing and meeting someone with 'anxiety' makes others anxious about themselves. ...you could think that I may be being a bit socially phobic right now, and yet: explain how flustered, agitated and rude some people become when face-to-face with a person with something like anxiety. I was treated rudely, with the assumption that my doctor had not made a mistake -but that I was just some loser with no desire to work.

...That to me suggests that others have a degree of social anxiety themselves, and that their way of dealing with it is to 'fight' it. So when they meet someone who can no longer succed in doing the same, they hate them because this person makes them feel insecure.

We are not so far removed from "normal" people. Yet because this is in fact the reality of things, this is why some people attack us and/or presume us to be losers -as in the rude attitudes some people display towards me. I even suspect that my doctor's mistake, was more of a Freudian slip, in that, again, anxiety is not so estranged from the ordinary experience of people -and she ticked that I was 'fit to work 8 or more hours' because she deals with her own anxiety by 'fighting' it and in this sense pretending it is not there. So, when they meet someone for whom it is there, they tend to have the attitude that you are just a weak person and that you are just lazy with a poor attitude.

I'll tell you what I know: it is trying to make something like anxiety vanish into thin air the way that many people do when they are dealing with it, that for others no-longer works. Such people, I believe are those with true anxiety problems. We can't deal with anxiety anymore the way that these people deal with it. It is trying to block-it-out, resisting and fighting it that only puts it more firmly in place for us. We have to face it and deal with it in this way; repress it as other people do and we experience it more. And in the meantime, we have to deal with ignorance and prejudice that others have towards us. ...In all truth, they are not so far removed from us -but don't tell them this. Let it be a secret between you and me. That way, when people label us as losers and are hostile towards us, we will be able to see through it.

I know I am right about this.

"Forgive others and God will forgive you" -isn't this the case because all the 'big differences' between people all end-up changing to become smaller differences on a true level. -Can you give a better explanation for the basis of prejudice and all forms of mistreatment and abuse? ...And doesn't this saying more than suggest that how we treat others and respond to others' treatment of us always comes back to effect who we then are-? ...And doesn't it make it much easier to forgive prejudice and prejudiced people, when we know with certainty that this is evidence of small differences becoming even smaller between them and us. -being that, how we interact with others in turn affects who we are and later become. So, yeah, let it be just our secret -the secret that us so-called socially anxious loser-outcasts can keep hidden from those who can't handle such an accurate version of reality.