chickenmaryjane
Well-known member
Just like you my SA started in my preteens, but knowing how things were before my SA makes me depressed. I hate my life.
What's worse, having SA your entire life or developing it later on?
- Thread starter vj288
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Well, I get anxious when I go out and I have AvPD so I'm constantly thinking of different ways to avoid triggers. I'm motivated to avoid painful anxiety but not motivated to get help so I can make friends since SA has never let me enjoy a friendship.
I notice the anxiety, not the lack of friendship, I s'pose you could say.
I hope that makes sense.
You know what Tweetebird, I think every social phobic person feels very bad like you have commented,especially when it is at its worst,...most guys including me I can remember anxious memories from when i was very little, actually most of my memories from the past are anxious. But if u have done good research, you would realise that so many guys including big celebrities in hollywood once had social anxiety, Jennifer Aniston just to mention one. This guys are living normal lives free from nervousness. My theory, I dont think because you are genetically predisposed to be anxious it means you will be like that for your life time. Much of what I have learnt with my struggle to overcome SAD is that, giving up is not an option. I know even you, you make look back at some things that you were scared of and laugh at yourself for how you looked stupid. That is one way I use to counter my anxiety, I compare everything I am afraid of to everything that looks stupid today when i see it in retrospect. When i look at life that way, I do not blame it on myself and I am able to overcome a lot everyday in small ways....I just hope this would help in your fight with anxiety....key thing, do not give up.
Good luck!
Good luck!
R3K
Well-known member
having it your whole life is worse, because that means you've had longer to experience more anxiety attacks and develope (accidentally) anti-social habits. when you're 7 or 8 years old, you don't know what the hell it is, but you're old enough to know that something's not right. it's like no-man's-land, you seriously believe you're not human sometimes. at least that's what it was like for me. it's very trialing to be left to your child-level mechanisms as you're struggling with something that's impossible to understand. you grow up with a completely warped and anti-social outlook on life.
if you get hit with it in your mid teens though, i imagine you'd have at least a tiny bit of knowledge of psychological things that makes the shock factor of getting SA a little easier than for someone who's had it for as long as they can think.
i used to sit up in my bed when i was 10 - 16 and replay dozens of my worst anxiety attacks from school, trying to exorcise them from my memory and understand them at once with just my young imagination. the act of recalling these bad memories was almost as bad as the memories themselves. it's almost an exponential effect (for me at least). having SAD longer = more suffering, basically.
that's my opinion anyway.
if you get hit with it in your mid teens though, i imagine you'd have at least a tiny bit of knowledge of psychological things that makes the shock factor of getting SA a little easier than for someone who's had it for as long as they can think.
i used to sit up in my bed when i was 10 - 16 and replay dozens of my worst anxiety attacks from school, trying to exorcise them from my memory and understand them at once with just my young imagination. the act of recalling these bad memories was almost as bad as the memories themselves. it's almost an exponential effect (for me at least). having SAD longer = more suffering, basically.
that's my opinion anyway.
CPA23
Well-known member
You hit the nail on the head. I always have been a shy person, but when I was 11 going on 12, I noticed that I began to be really isolated and anti-social. Even now at 25, I replay painful memories in my head from jr. high and high school. Not only do I get sad, but I become so angry. I am at a better place now than I was even a year ago, but the pain and frustration hasn't completely gone away. Feeling like this makes me feel less of a person. I just really feel detached sometimes and just wish I could get away from my own mind. I used to cry to myself all the time because I felt so bad on the inside and nobody was there to help me. Nobody knows my personal struggles that I'm dealing with because I don't want to interfere with other peoples' lives. I just wish that I could feel better. I have my moments where I'll feel pretty good and then it just goes downhill!
You're not alone dude.