Social Anxiety Disorder

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it sounds like you may have the wrong doctor (for you). she should trust you that you can tell the difference between when you are being a little paranoid or hard on yourself, and when you legitimately feel uncomfortable and are struggling with a social situation. if she doesn't trust your own judgment about that, especially only in such a one-sided (concentrating on the negative) way, i would maybe look for a doctor that you can establish a better rapport with than that. you should never feel patronised by your doctor or that their approach is ludicrous. if you do, that means the doctor is probably not the best doctor, and at the very least is not right for what you need. trust (including your trust in the doctor's competence) is key.

I agree with you on this. The problem is that this 'challenging the negative impressions the client reports' is actually part of the process, not just one therapist. This is openly stated on any CBT literature I've read.

The more I find out about psycotherapy, the lack of any empirical evidence behind it, the lack of it's practitioners to even consider empirical evidence as having value, the more it looks like psuedo science on a par with astrology and crystal healing.

the counselor i have now i do like, so i feel i should say that they're not all voodoo doctors lol....it's true there is a lot to be desired in the field, but there are those out there that are just really good listeners and approach talk therapy from a purely practical perspective. and having a safe place where you can talk to an intelligent good listener at least gives you the chance to talk through some of your feelings and get some order to your thoughts. that always has value, even if it doesn't "fix" the underlying problem--it's easy for me to say that though because i don't pay for the counseling i am receiving now (i see a counselor at my local assault survivor's centre b/c of my PTSD). it really is an individual process for everybody, and finding the right counselor/doctor is key, but also one of the most challenging aspects of the process (too many people out there in the wrong field, too many quacks). i forget that for a lot of people (especially americans because often these things aren't covered by insurance, and many people don't have insurance at all) things like counseling aren't always as accessible or financially feasible as they can be here.

Zonder wrote:

Congratulations!! Getting yourself out of a stressful job is huge. Maybe you could find a way to make what you love doing into a way to make a living, in my experience, when you do what you love everything just falls into place, if you can find a way to trust that it will.. I had to stop pushing myself to fix everything for everyone several years ago (I know, not exactly the same thing) and I have been amazed by how everything just works out okay when I don't allow people to get me stressed out about it.

If you want help with natural remedies, I have spent years immersed in the study of them due to my own sensitivities and inability to handle anything chemical.









When my children were young I was looked up to and considered a great role model (mother) because of how well-behaved, considerate, unselfish, honest etc my children were, which was a result of my allowing them to be who they were (aspies and auties) instead of forcing them to be what I wanted or trying to control them (I have no sympathy for people who claim that their autistic children are making them miserable, I immediately think that it is them that is making their child miserable, I have a friend who's son is an aspie and she can't get him to behave and he is a perfect angel when he is with me, because she is trying so hard to fit a certain image and her son just can't do it), my children had firm, simple, reasonable boundaries and had no reason to act out as I also respected their sensitivities (not easy to do, but better than having problems with meltdowns), my children did not have a lot of the difficulties I read about on here, because I found a way to work around their limitations, but as adults it has been a whole new ball game, they are expected to now change into normal people and are not respected for their altruism (autism ) like they used to be, only my oldest son is trying to fit into normal society and he is so miserable, he is very successful and is in a relationship with someone that he just adores, but he also has to deny who he is and reject his family, he is trying so hard to be normal that he is for the first time having severe meltdowns and there is nothing I can do to help, but let him find out for himself that he can't change who he is and that reason he is having issues now was not caused by not being forced to be normal sooner.

I have read that somewhere also, that in some eastern cultures contemplatives are appreciated instead of looked down upon, but that just doesn't fit into the western worlds search for prosperity at the price of mental health, we aren't going to find peace in the external world until we find it in the internal world first.

You don't have to search very hard to find examples of the psychological costs people are paying for living in a contradictory way.. I am so happy to be abnormal, I wouldn't trade any of them for the internal hell they live in regardless of how good they are at making it look like everything is just 'peachy'

No.



Why in God's name would I want to meet people? People annoy me.

Never had anything like it.

Yes.



No. Often I can overcome it more or less logically: I always feel anxious and nervous around people, and talking to them/meeting them is not worse than simply being in the same room with them. So I may as well interact. Occassionally there's one that I get used to and like. If I'm pretty much stuck with a situation where there are going to be people around, I interact and don't feel any more frightened than if I'm withdrawn.

Anti-anxiety meds also help. Before them I had much more trouble with people I could simply avoid going near. I'd skip meals rather than face the brief interpersonal exchange with the grocery store clerk or waiter. I still deliberately choose to go to the grocery store when I know there will be a certain clerk there who never speaks except to tell you the total charge, but with meds I'll also do stuff like buy lunch when before I'd try to get lots of stuff at once to minimize the contact.

Even if it's just people I'm used to and like, I get socialed-out. I don't feel anxious interacting with those people, but I'm more tired after a day with company than I am if I spent the day alone doing hard physical or intellectual exercise.

Social anxiety disorder was my very first diagnosis and, even today, it is still the one aspect that effects me the most. It is my single biggest limiting factor in life, and I would be willing to give up just about anything, in order to eliminate it. Unrealistic? Yes, but that is my wish.

Interesting thread.

A few weeks ago a psychiatrist told me I wasn't on the spectrum, because all the problems I'd mentioned could be explained by Social Anxiety Disorder, so I'd sort of been assuming that the two things didn't go together. They clearly do.

He wasn't very interested in the autistic traits that aren't currently causing me major problems.

I was diagnosed with AS and comorbid social phobia . Social situations are still only marginally more tolerable than at the time of my diagnosis.

There are a couple of things that I am really good at and I am concentrating on them. I have had some success in my career, so I'm not starting from scratch.

What are natural remedies for anxiety? I have exercised for years, and have taken B-complex on and off, but that is about it. Also am mostly GFCF (can't give up hard cheese).

Z

My psychiatrist has me guzzling a multi-vitamin with B-complex (B-6 is supposed to be important) and Omega-3 (fish oil) capsules (2000mg) and vitamin D (2000 IU). I am not sure which of these things is supposed to help with anxiety or make my meds work better and which are supposed to help me sleep more normally. She's pretty insistant that I take them daily, off-and-on being ineffective or at least less so. Won't do you any harm.

I used to take St. John's Wort. It works like a mild SSRI and actually gave me the same taste-perversion start-up side effect when I first started it. It helped some. The 'Eclectic Institute' brand worked better than the others.

I think a big thing is that if you smoke pot, stop. It inhibits GABA, the chill-out neurotransmitter, and thus makes a lot of people more anxious in a funny 'I'm relaxed and high, yet paranoid,' sort of way and the increased anxiety lasts longer than the high. Pot's great for some people but bad for others and how it effects you can change.

By the way, my SSRI hasn't made me less creative. I'm quite lucky and it works very well for me. It's made me more energetic (possibly a little more than it should) so I act on my creative impulses more, really. But if you do decide to try that, be prepared for it to make you feel like crap for a month and remember that if it does that effect will most likely go away. After three or six weeks of life being significantly worse than it was before. It was really hellish for me and that's pretty common. I would have been screwed if I'd been working at the time.

I have social anxiety. No ti doesn't make it impossible for em to meet people. I go to parties some and stuff. It takes em a while to actually warm up to someone.

I have had it forever. It does not make it impossible to meet people, but I have to force myself to do it. When I was young, I knew it was not good to be so anxious about talking to someone and wanted to be better socially, so I forced myself into situations where I HAD to talk to people. For example, I went on a couple of study semesters to Europe where I knew that I had to speak to people in order to get along. It really helped.

Yeah, was even on the Social anxiety forum.
My shrink put me on Cipralex for depression, didnt do much for depression, but hey!, my social anxiety is pretty much gone, almost dangerously so as I dont much care what I say to anybody now.

I self diagnosed myself with it before I ever thought about aspergers. Then when I decided I probably have aspergers, I dismissed the idea of social anxiety disorder. Now this thread is making me wonder if I have both. Or maybe even something different... who knows. All I know is you'd have to force me at gun point to go into an elevator that has strangers in it.