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26th January 2012

Question with 1 note

yelineks asked: I haven't started yet.. but thankfully i have a mother who has it as well and soon enough I will get a therapist and maybe some medication.. If youd like to know my story I posted it earlier today.. its kinda long but id appreciate it:) I would kinda like to know how your life went.. your experiences and problems since youve had it..

My social anxiety started probably around the same time as yours. I never really thought about what “triggered” it until my therapist asked me about it. 

I guess it had a lot to do with my dad. He was a very disconnected, unemotional person. I couldn’t really talk to or have a conversation with him. When I was a teenager, I started gaining weight, because I had quit all the dance classes I used to take and I wasn’t get as much exercise anymore. My dad kinda picked on me for it, saying things like “All I ever see is you going in the fridge” and stuff like that. Things you probably shouldn’t say to a teenage girl. I don’t blame him, really, his father was the same way. But my self esteem and confidence disappeared because of it, and I began to judge myself as harshly as I felt everyone else was judging me. I mean, if my father was saying these things to me, surely everyone was thinking them? Your father is supposed to love you and say positive things to you, no matter what, right? 

So I stopped talking to people, because I assumed they thought horrible things about me and hated me. In school, even when the teachers called on me, I didn’t say anything. At most, I would answer questions with an “I don’t know”, even if I knew the answer. I never wanted to risk saying something wrong in front of people. It pissed off the teachers so bad that I got detention for saying “I don’t know” to a question once. I spent my days trying my best to be invisible. I’d skip school if I knew I had to do a presentation or something in front of the class. The one day I was forced to do a presentation, some asshole kids made it a point to ask me 23948320 questions about it while I was standing in front of everyone, just to make me even more nervous. I got muscle spasms in front of everyone. That scarred me for a while. 

I was nervous about literally every move I made, even breathing in front of people. I felt as though I didn’t deserve to be liked, I didn’t deserve anything. Some days, I’d get sick to my stomach as soon as I woke up, just thinking about going to school…so I just didn’t go. I refused to participate in gym class, so I failed. It took me 5 years to graduate high school and it wasn’t because I was stupid. 

I get headaches after being in public for too long. I get shortness of breath, I get dizzy, I get muscle spasms. I don’t have to be talking in front of people to get these symptoms, they happen when I’m just…in public. I go out of my way to not be a bother to other people. And when I say “bother”, I mean…I’d rather drive a mile out of my way than make a left hand turn and hold up the car behind me. My whole life is dominated by the anxiety. The only time I am ever completely, 100% comfortable, is when I’m home alone. I get so frustrated when people call me “shy”. I’m not shy. It’s so much more than that. It’s an actual psychological problem that I can’t control. 

But I’m seeing a psychiatrist and a counselor for it now and I’m hoping to have a lot of help getting over it. I get discouraged sometimes, reading other peoples experiences, seeing as how a lot of them say they still deal with anxiety somedays. I don’t want to deal with this for the rest of my life. I want it to be gone now. I don’t want to accept the fact that this may never go away. I’m determined to not let that happen.