social anxiety brought on by pregnancy??

[jillian]

Hello, Im new to this forum site. I was just wondering, I am 4 months pregnant now, and I recently noticed bad symptoms. I cannot talk to anyone (other than my mother, daughter and husband) without my entire face turning bright red and blushing. Not only that, but my whole body shakes and I panic and get dizzy. I cant even pay attention to what the person is saying. Ive always been uncomfortable around people, but it has only been visible recently. Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[cptkoi]

I know when my ex wife was pregnant she went through a phase of this - amongst many other things.

She became very self conscious at one point, she related it to having this alien trying to escape from her belly and what would people think she looked like when she never thought she looked that great in the first place.

As the pregnancy settled down more towards the end she seemed to chill out and all bar the giving birth loomin on the horizon things got alot better.

The one thing you may want to watch out for is post natal depression. If you were a bit wobbly before then things could get wobbly after. If you have the support of loved ones around then you will be fine I am sure

 

[nexus]

I'm not sure if I can help (never been pregnant before so...) but pregnancy usually brings out a lot of emotional stress about various reasons which women are sometimes not aware of (repressed emotions). For instance, (& just like you said) you've always felt uncomfortable around people but this time it became clear to u that u have an actual symptom of SA, that u can't talk to anyone else but your husband, mother & daughter. That doesn't necessary mean that you'll keep suffering from that for the rest of your life. I believe it's a good thing that u realized what's going on in time (=before giving birth, so to avoid post natal depression, just like cptkoi said). I'm sure you'll be able to deal with it.

Btw, did u discuss this with your husband/mother/daughter? Do they know that you always felt uncomfortable around ppl?

 

[jillian]

Im not so much worried about the postparnum depression, since I have gone through pregnancy before. The SA doesnt make sense to me, because I am not self conscious around people. I dont feel like people are judging me or looking for my flaws, I just panic when people talk to me or i have to talk to anyone. My husband doesnt understand it, so he has been purposely trying to make me talk to people, or if he is mad at me he uses it to get back at me. For example, we were at Wal Mart and we were looking for something, so I told him to go ask a worker. he yells my name from 3 aisles over, and when I got there he had a worker standing there. He was like "this guy works here, ask him." I wanted to strangle him, but I walked away instead. My hubby isnt helpful at all and doesnt understand it at all and think its just me being stupid and needing to get over it. He knows i get really dizzy and panicy around people. My mom lives 500 miles away (and she completely ignores me most of the time that I do talk to her). I could tell her i am dying, im getting a sex change, or something far out that should get a response and she always responds with "thats nice... well I gotta go, nice keeping in touch". my husband is my only friend in the world. my daughter is only 2 so she isnt much help. Thank you all for listening. Its nice to have someone who understands for once. Thank you so much.

 

[racheH]

The SA doesnt make sense to me, because I am not self conscious around people. I dont feel like people are judging me or looking for my flaws, I just panic when people talk to me or i have to talk to anyone.

That would be more paranoia anyway, although the two often occur together. I haven't always felt that people were judging me, but for as long as I can remember I've felt extreme distress whenever I have sensed disapproval - especially, though not exclusively, when it's aimed at me. Of course, the consequences or implications of being disliked can be distressing, but if you always find it so, regardless of the situation or how much credit you give the other person's opinion, then that suggests social phobia.

It depends on exactly what makes you uncomfortable. Is it fear that people may judge you, by something you'll say or do? Or is it the stress of being required to engage in something as taxing as communication? The latter sounds odd to most people, but severe introversion is hard to explain also: Strongly disliking the effort of mentally organising sensory information for the purposes of the external world, because it's so hard to divert any more attention from the inner one. The conflict between the two becomes very 'uncomfortable'.
Or is it something else...?

 

[nexus]

I could be wrong but I'm not sure that your problem was brought on by pregnancy...

Many things could have caused this. How were things when u were younger? Did u feel the same way back then about talking to ppl/ppl talking to you?