So my last sign in here was sometime in 2011. While doing some research this website popped into my head out of nowhere and I thought I'd make a post. My life has changed dramatically over these few years and I can confidently say my 10 + year struggle with SA is gone for good. It took lot of work on my part but in the end it paid off big time. I can say I've been pretty anxiety free for over a year now but I did have to reach and extreme low and a near death experience to get to where I am. Anyways I make this primarily to answer any questions anyone had about any treatment or steps I took to get here. SA was a huge roadblock in my life and I remember having issues doing simple things like leaving the house or going to the store. Making friends was next to impossible let alone finding a SO. Anyways if there's anything you'd like to know please ask away! If I can help even one person its worth it.
It's been 4 years since I last visited SPW
- Thread starter gtrvspec
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Sacrament
Well-known member
Meds won't change the way your mind works, it'll only work on a hormonal/brain level. What'll make you better is to change your perception of things, overcoming the irrational thoughts that plague your mind whenever you think about going outside to face people and the world itself.
Bronson99
Well-known member
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I consider agoraphobia to be more of a situational or "acquired" kind of anxiety. That doesn't mean it's not challenging or anything.. but it's not really the same functional problem as most of us who have SA deal with. I believe SA is mostly aligned with a deficiency in social skills, probably an innate deficiency. A strong recovery, to my cynical eyes, may imply your social skills were present all along.
It's an endless battle for most of us, really. Improvements can be made.. sure.. but I think "cure" is possible just for those who had skills to begin with.
It's an endless battle for most of us, really. Improvements can be made.. sure.. but I think "cure" is possible just for those who had skills to begin with.
I probably did classify and Agoraphobic? as well but I definitely had social anxiety along with it. Feeling of being judged and watched by others, getting sick to my stomach to the point of vomiting during or in anticipation of a social event, being quiet and lacking social skills, unable to make conversation and feeling like you can't "connect with anyone", these are all feelings I had, along with my diagnosis of SA. Social skills are something we develop and become more proficient in as we get older. Anxiety, espsecially social anxiety gets in the way of it's developement. Once we get our anxiety under control it becomes much easier to develop these skills because we dont have our anxiety holding us back or making us nervous.
Heres a great personal example. Back in 2009 I was put on a new medication. This medication sent me into a full blown mania for 8 months! During these months I went from being the most quiet and socially anxious person in the world to a social butterfly while manic. I honestly think we ALL have better social skills than we think but we're blinded by anxiety so we don't see it that way. Once that layer of fear that is anxiety is stripped away thats when this becomes evident.
Congrats! Please share your story so people can know it's possible to be/get better
I can easily write 10,000 + words describing my life up to this point but I'll condese it as much as possible. If you'd like me to be more specific about a certain part I can elaborate.
I was a very nervous child, my parents were often told this by my elementry school teachers. I was always treated as a lesser person by my "friends" in elementary school so I decided to ditch them and go to a different high school and have a fresh start. My intentions were good but it blew up in my face. I was far to anxious to meet people and spent the better part of my 2 years there binge gaming on my computer as an "escape" to my lonliness. I would spend every waking second behind the computer with no human interaction which I believe had a huge impact on my lack of social skills futher down the road. I was eventually diagnosed with SA in 2007 and given medication. Meds were changed here and there and sometime in 2009 I went into a full blown, drug induced mania from an SSRI I have given. This last almost an entire year and, although seen as "bad" actually helped me get to where I am today. When I was in my manic state I had absolutely no anxiety, I lived every day in a state of intense euphoria and wanted to talk to anyone and everyone. I made more friends with randoms and probably spoke more in those 8 or so months than I had in my entire life to that point literally...
Fast forward to after I joined this site in 2011 I had graduated from college and had my first real job. I was still an anxious wreck though, I made every life decision based on how anxious I felt. Nothing was pleasurable anymore, things I enjoyed doing out of the house I could no longer enjoy because I was too anxious. I eventually got depressed and had to quit my job. Being in my late 20s and still living at home started to severely depress me. My friends were all flying by and leaving me in the dust. I had just spent 7 months tapering off benzodiazipenes I should have never been given at the rate it was prescribed but still had a bottle kicking around. One night I downed a 40 oz bottle of whiskey and, in my drunk state, took 3mg of Benzos. I ended up taking a walk, with no shirt on, in -30c weather and passing out. I woke up in the hospital and was told I'd almost died.
Spent the next little while worrying more and more about my future and came to a realization. Living at home worry free was enabling my anxiety, maybe if I had no choice but to fend for myself in a sink or swim situation I'd grow as a person and take one more step to getting my life back. Packed a bag with some clothes and my laptop after everyone went to sleep one night and drove for 2 days off and on to start fresh without telling a soul. Got an apartment and eventually got a job out of province. Started using tools I had learned from pervious therapy sessions in everyday life to ease the anxiety. Set personal goals for myself, started expanding my interests and taking optional courses. Learned how to dive, took a culinary class and many others. After fending for myself for a while with no one else to hold my hand I started doing things that would have terrified me in the past without even realizing it. Then, when I did realize it I would feel a little bout of anxiety. This was enough to prove to me that my anxiety was causing me to look at life through an irrational lens and that there actually wasn't anything to fear.
My anxiety was fairly minimal at this point and much easier to manage. My goals started getting easier and easier and eventually I reached what I consider to be my ultimate goal - to join the toastmasters club at work. They have anywhere between 30-50 people in a room and call random names. They give you a topic and you must talk about it for 5 minutes. I was EXTREMELY nervous but kept ignoring any negative thoughts and it got easier and easier and easier. I reconnected with my family and friends as a much stronger person. This was extremely drastic of me and I'm sure theres much better ways to tackle this.
A few things that helped me along the way
- Meditation: If I was anxious about going to buy groceries I'd lye down for 20 minutes before leaving and meditate. I'd take deep breaths and visualize myself doing whatever it is I was anxious about successfully, with no anxiety. This would make it easier for me to start doing whatever it is that I was going to do.
- If you have social anxiety you should expect to be anxious: I always used to beat myself up over my anxiety. The second I'd feel anxious doing something I'd get irritated and start getting angry at myself for it. Does a person with bronchitis get angry and beat themselves up every time they cough? of course not, it's to be expected but just like anxiety it will eventually go away given the right treatment.
- Don't pay attention to your anxiety: If someone is trying to anger you on purpose, looking for a reaction and you make a scene then they win. If you ignore them and don't let it get to you they eventually realize this and go find someone else to get a reaction out of. Same with anxiety, it will be tough not to pay attention to it at first BUT slowly it will start to subside. I would immediately distract myself when anxiety would come around. For example, if I was driving I'd read every letter of the streets signs in my head, read all the colors of everything around me in my head ect ect. Anything to distract me from my anxious thinking.
- Baby steps: You can't learn to walk before you crawl. I was terrified of walking around my block, what if the neghbours try and talk to me? what will I say? So I started sitting out front of my house first until that got comfortable and then went from there.
- Focus your energy OUTWARD: This is hard to explain but it helped me ALOT. When I had SA and someone was talking directly to me, face to face, my brain would immediately focus on me. Do I look funny? They can definitely see my anxiety, ect ect which made it hard to pay attention to what they were saying. This would make it hard to add anything to a conversation and cause me to beat myself up for being "boring" I started making a conscious effort to focus my energy outward and focus really hard on what they were saying often repeating every word that came out of their mouth in my head. This would make my brain "too busy" to be anxious.
- Keep yourself busy: The more time I spent alone the more bad thoughts I had. I think this was due to the fact that I was a big recluse and had severe depression which would give me all kinds of bad thoughts.
Theres many other little things I did that all took part in overcoming SA a big part being determination. There were many days where I felt like sitting in a dark corner and not doing anything after work but I'd quickly find something to do out of the house, even if it was a trip to the corner store for a gatorade even though I wasn't thirsty. Again, this is a very condensed version of my story, if theres anything you'd like to ask please do! I'd love to help as much as possible.
Opaline
1
Thank you for sharing your story, and congratulations on being able to say you've overcome such a difficult issue. It must feel good to be able to say you used to be anxious all the time.
You're right that staying at home and avoiding everything makes anxiety and depression worse. I think a lot of us have heard this many times (I know I have) but we do it anyway. I'm in my mid-20's and I had really bad social anxiety all throughout primary school which improved during the last two years of high school, and improved a bit more after that but then got increasingly worse after that; now I'm anxious about things I wasn't even in high school (although not practically mute like in school). I think lately my problem has been lack of motivation. I know what I need to do to get better, but I can't find the drive to do it. It seems like too much effort. I used to be willing to put that effort in, and I don't know why I lost the motivation, but nothing seems worth it anymore and I feel I'm just doing the bare minimum most days because I'm alive and have to do something. Did you ever lose steam at any point in trying to improve, or just want to give up? How did you motivate yourself if you did?
You're also right about social skills being something that everyone is capable of learning, because that's what everyone does; no one is born knowing how to interact with others. We learn from others and through trial and error, usually during our formative years, but some of those with SA miss out on some of that and so must catch up later. I honestly think, though, that most people with SA don't lack social skills, they just come across as if they do because they're too anxious to behave in what are considered socially "normal" ways. I think most of us recognize social cues and know what is and is not appropriate most of the time, but doubt ourselves or don't behave the way we want to because of nerves.
You're right that staying at home and avoiding everything makes anxiety and depression worse. I think a lot of us have heard this many times (I know I have) but we do it anyway. I'm in my mid-20's and I had really bad social anxiety all throughout primary school which improved during the last two years of high school, and improved a bit more after that but then got increasingly worse after that; now I'm anxious about things I wasn't even in high school (although not practically mute like in school). I think lately my problem has been lack of motivation. I know what I need to do to get better, but I can't find the drive to do it. It seems like too much effort. I used to be willing to put that effort in, and I don't know why I lost the motivation, but nothing seems worth it anymore and I feel I'm just doing the bare minimum most days because I'm alive and have to do something. Did you ever lose steam at any point in trying to improve, or just want to give up? How did you motivate yourself if you did?
You're also right about social skills being something that everyone is capable of learning, because that's what everyone does; no one is born knowing how to interact with others. We learn from others and through trial and error, usually during our formative years, but some of those with SA miss out on some of that and so must catch up later. I honestly think, though, that most people with SA don't lack social skills, they just come across as if they do because they're too anxious to behave in what are considered socially "normal" ways. I think most of us recognize social cues and know what is and is not appropriate most of the time, but doubt ourselves or don't behave the way we want to because of nerves.
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arjuna
Well-known member
So, there you have it, hard work and dedication pay off. It makes a difference to read once of these posts rather than the typical "Everybody hates me," "I can't cope," etc. etc.
Did you have a plan on how to rid yourself of the phobia or did you just do it spontaneously? Did you find any materials to be specially helpful?
Did you have a plan on how to rid yourself of the phobia or did you just do it spontaneously? Did you find any materials to be specially helpful?
This described me PERFECTLY. As I got older I became to anxious to do things like taking a walk yet, in highschool, although anxious in the classroom would be able to walk to and from school without any anxiety.
Definitely. When I joined this site back in 2011 I had been doing that course in my year off while trying to find employment. This meant I had as much time to devote to it as I wanted and I saw noticible improvements after a few months. When I got my first real job I had to make an impression so I dedicated all of my time to work and completely abandoned the program I was doing. Eventually, I became worse again which discouraged me even more. Think of it as someone who went to the gym for years and built a great physique and then something got in the way and they stopped going, then when they were free again they looked in the mirror and got depressed and discouraged after seeing all that work go to waste.
As for motivating myself that was a huge issue for me. I'm lucky enough to have a VERY supportive family so they had no issues with me living here rent free. Because of this, I often got too comfortable and would put things off regularly. This is precisely why I chose to throw myself in the wild far away from anyone I knew. If I would have stayed in my home town I knew I would have eventially gone back as soon as things got tough so I decided to rid myself of that option. At that point motivation because less of a factor because I couldn't just avoid things anymore, I actually had things I NEEDED to do. Something else that motivated me was watching all my friends grow up leaving me behind. Getting homes, getting married ect ect. This actually made me put in more effort to get to that stage.
It was mostly spontaneous. I say mostly because my therapist had a plan for me so technically I did but it didn't prove too effective. I definitely recommend this audio series called overcoming social anxiety step by step by dr richards. If you can dedicate an hour a day to this it really does work but remember, overcoming something that has become a habit for many years takes time. I started noticing changes after several months of following this.
For me, personally, it was about stepping out of my comfort zone but in small, slow doses. I used to go from 0-60 and then beat myself up because I didn't feel perfectly calm. Make sure you are realistic with your expectations and use methods that work for you. Meditation might not help everyone just like medications might not be right for everyone but right for some. If you're anxious about a situation like, for example, going into a new job on the first day let yourself be anxious for the first litte while until you start getting used to the routine and THEN start working on everything else.
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