What's your theory?

[Lorraine Manca]

I dont mean to beat a dead horse, but we all know the whole bad parenting, fear of rejection/embarrassment, bad genes, plus anxiety around people recipe for sa. Do you think there is something else going on? Whats your theory?

 

[Lorraine Manca]

yeah, i've been preoccupied with the idea that those "causes" are just symptoms of social anxiety and not the actual causes. well parenting and genes are probably true causes. i think there is something else fundamental to it though.

 

[Noca]

There's no one cause to mental illnesses. Its as you listed, a many factor problem.

 

[FOR REAL]

ive not got a "theory", but im thinking about getting one though!

 

[Anubis]

It's addictive self-inflicted pain, based on desperate perception. That's my theory.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

well, this is going to sounds silly, which is why its taken three posts for me to say it. but i dont think that i cant speak with people because im anxious, but that im anxious because i cant speak to people. not being able to speak to people then has a cause other than anxiety. so what could that be? the funny thing is that like many of the people on this site, i am very sensitive in every way. even though i cant speak to people or look them in the eyes easily or say their names i feel extremely connected to people. its overwhelming because i feel connected to absolutely everyone. So in a crowed room, its like maxing out your brain. it is like you are connected to everyone at a different frequency than is conducive to conversation. at a deeper level than the superficial level on which conversation normally occurs. for example.. i attract mentally ill people like a magnet. people wont chat to me about their day, but a fair amount will tell me extremely personal information right away. hence the theory of the different frequency. except thats probably not the right word. please, does any one know what i mean?
of course all the traditional causes are very valid, but there are also people who have been treated just as badly as all of us and did not develope this disorder.

 

[timidhorse]

Resulting from bullying and seeing bullying of others, my perception was that people were to be feared and rightly so....

 

[iamthenra]

SA, depression, OCD, ADD, ADHD etc... Oh I almost forgot EIEIO.... Haha! I have a theory... Could all this be possibly due to our environment? I mean, look at the food we eat... Chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, bio engineered plants, pollution air and soil... Since all the mental illnesses seem to be treated with yet another chemical (drugs) because our brains lack a certain chemical or it's out of balance... Maybe, just maybe it might be due to our exposure to all these chemicals we use each day???? Hmmmm

 

[adamsj09]

I think Lorraine is on to something...

I feel connected to everyone in the world, like their happiness could possibly cure mine. I think that depressed/anxious people talk to me more because seeing their problems make me think less of mine and therefore enables conversation. I sometimes try to ignore my anxiety and look people straight in the eyes but something happens then and I get this uncomfortable feeling inside me and I notice that the other person can notice this and they seem uncomfortable from it as well. Anyone else get that?

 

[Lorraine Manca]

Yeah iamthenra, I buy that. hasnt there been a huge rise in autism over the years? i know depression and anxiety are increasing a whole bunch too. thanks for posting!

 

[meatcake]

society is more fragmented - smaller families, less continuity in social relations. causes increased stress, because we're pack animals. stress increases wariness, your brain seeks out threats, including social threats (angry faces, rejection), trying to keep you safe. but it makes you an anxious wreck. anxiety screws with normal social functioning - blank mind, weird body language - hence rejection, hence more stress, in a loop.

i've felt better since finding these sites, being able to socialize and make some online friends. it's like having more of a social network. my stress is lower, so i feel less anxious around people. to a point, anyway.

i think a lot of my anxiety comes from having too few good role models as a kid - i learned a lot of weird ways of interacting with people. another problem with smaller families.

 

[Nicholas]

This is mine, as of now:

1) Some sensitivity of some kind (= we are the kind of people who think too much)
plus
2) Wrong way to cope with bad experiences in the past and now (= maybe caused by overprotective or non-protective parents, bullying, traumas, etc)
plus
3) A situation where you feel you can't easily be whoever you really want to be (= example: you feel you have a lot to give to others but there's no one around for you, repressed emotions, etc)
equals
Psychological problems of all kinds.

 

[WelshOne]

My SA was the combination of many social pressures.

For me, one of those pressures was a girl during highschool who was very keen on me, and would always sit by me in geogaphy (and other places,) and flirt non-stop. One time she suggested we share a tent on an upcoming field trip, and I was REALLY not ready for what I thought she was leading (and pressuring) me to. Needless to say I didn't go on that field trip.

So, lots of things like that all added together to become almost too much to handle. Then I became depressed and that tipped me over the edge... and I had a mental breakdown, refusing to go back to school and becoming suicidal at the thought of having to continue.

Since then, my SA peaked and has ruled my life for the last 5 years...

 

[AlleyCat]

I think my SA mainly comes from the environment I was raised in. I grew up around someone that was always so negative and judgmental of other people. In a way, it made me a more open-minded person and empathetic to others because I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to be the way he was. Unfortunately, it also really did a number on my self-esteem. I guess I was just made to feel so insignificant and worthless that I started to believe it myself. I thought that if my own dad felt that way about me, everyone else would view me the same way. I'm sure there are other factors that also played a role, but I do believe that was the main one for me.

 

[Mikefly]

In my opinion it's all genes.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

In my opinion it's all genes.

I think that would be a big deal if it were determined to be all genes. i think treatment would have to be completely overhauled. Instead of learning to overcome it, they would have to teach us to live with it. I mean, instead of working with you to expose you to alot of the situations that set it off, they'd work with you to build a way of life that minimized exposure. seems like it would be an entirely physical problem rather than a psyche problem. just like you wouldn't feed a diabetic a bag of sugar to get them used to it, you wouldn't try to make a social phobic social. perhaps that treatment does not work for some people, because they have the sort that is more genes based whereas others developed their's primarily from bad experiences. who knows. i think that there are many subtypes of social anxiety that havent been differentiated in the books yet.

i know the analogy i used is not completely logical. im still trying to think of a better one.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

society is more fragmented - smaller families, less continuity in social relations. causes increased stress, because we're pack animals. stress increases wariness, your brain seeks out threats, including social threats (angry faces, rejection), trying to keep you safe. but it makes you an anxious wreck. anxiety screws with normal social functioning - blank mind, weird body language - hence rejection, hence more stress, in a loop.

i've felt better since finding these sites, being able to socialize and make some online friends. it's like having more of a social network. my stress is lower, so i feel less anxious around people. to a point, anyway.

i think a lot of my anxiety comes from having too few good role models as a kid - i learned a lot of weird ways of interacting with people. another problem with smaller families.

yeah, i think your 100% right about that one. the society we live in is not ideal for anyone. shrinking microcosm's have especially been a trend in the u.s. there are smaller families, more mobility, more dense populations. there are less people you know well, and more people you hardly know at all..when you are stressed from these things your mind automatically tries to identify the source of the stress and avoid it. no guarantees it will identify the right thing. on it goes.

it is interesting though that there are so many different human reactions to these modern stressors. road rage, violence, rudeness, weakness, throwing toy poodles into traffic

 

[fauxleigh]

There were no problem for me having a proper friendships in my childhood, but then I was rejected by someone and cried in some night and after that my parents said to me something like "move on, not everyone supposed to like you", since then I have became a paranoid person and that's the catalyst for my SA.

 

[zlench]

It's my brain and other problems and that I just seem to **** up and fail in my life.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

here's another dorky bit. i was thinking about the eye contact part of it. for me it seems that im not afraid of people judging me harshly, but instead it is more like i respect people too much to look at them. it gets dorkier yet. i feel like i can't look at people almost because i see the divine in them. they look too beautiful and their presence is overwhelming. this is problem when this is radiating from absolutely everyone. you see in the old testament there were two quarks about interacting with God. you could not look on the face of God because it would kill you to see something so great, and you could not say his name. both are symptoms of sa, although the name thing is more unusual. i know how it sounds, but where else can you hash out this stuff?