Posted by Leporello on May 24, 2003, at 22:34:07
In reply to How do you handle social situations like this?, posted by WorryGirl on April 6, 2003, at 18:23:54
!!Sorry about the first post :). This is my first message on this BBS and I haven't gotten used to the system.!!
Hello WG. I know exactly how you feel. I'm not sure if you've been diagnosed as such yet or what specifically your difficulties are but mine are very much centered in social anxiety. I honestly thought I was the only one with this condition because know one else seemed to have understood what I was going through and my perceptions of myself or more importantly, of how I perceived other people perceiving me.
Then I saw an awareness commercial with Donny Osmond(sp?) as the spokes person talking about social anxiety disorder, something I had never heard of until then. All the symptoms checked out so I searched the internet and came across this site:
http://www.socialphobia.org/whatis.html#whatis1
That's a link to the "what is" section. When I read that over, it was like someone had just doused me in ice water, it was a huge wake up call! I had finally found my diagnosis and it took an awareness commercial to do it even though I had seen many different professionals by that time. All the examples given on that page conform to my own experiences so if you want to know what I live with on a regular basis, that would be it.
I know Social Anxiety has already come up as has cognitive behavioral therapy so I won't say much more on the specifics. I did try CBT but I found that I was not ready and could not do the behavioral exercises that are central to that style of therapy. I've tried Paxil and Zoloft but reacted to both so I settled on Wellbutrin to help with my depression which is pretty much in check... but the anxiety remains. I'm very pathologically set and I do know that this is what I will be dealing with for the rest of my life.
I don't know if this is what you have but you may want to check out that symptoms list because the specific examples that they give are incredible!
One other thing you may want to consider is if your need to disclose personal information about yourself to receptive people is also based in rejection. That being, if they know your history and your difficulties fairly early, then you give them the option to reject you outright rather than build a relationship with them over time only to have them reject you when things start to get more personal and you've begun to establish a relationship with the individual. I've done that in the past myself.
poster:Leporello
thread:216763
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030407/msgs/228954.html