Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:08 pm Post subject: HI new member , in scotland , anyone to talk?
hi my names mark , im from scotland im 23 years old and have suffered from anxiety for years on and off , currently im unemployed and find it hard to be in the 1 place for a period of time , my home is where i am mostly , agrophobia has taken hold of my life , and no-one i know seems to understand and its a lonely place ,
i dont know any methods of controlling my problem other than avoiding going places and i feel i let everyone down when i do this ,
i have done C.B.T. but i found it did not make a difference to me , it just made me understand what causes the feelings , nothing to resolve it or manage them ,
if anyone near me wants to talk i would love it , even just listening to someone else helps , thanks for taking the time to read my post ,
I'm also 23 and I used to have wicked bad agoriphobia... I couldn't leave the house for anything when I was at school... I wouldn't eat for days and I'd miss class all the time - I'd only leave at night to stock up on goodies at the all night 7-11! I couldn't handle a job and I was almost paranoid all the time with the partying going on around me on campus all day and night (i lived on campus in the dorms... big mistake!) but this site helped me through the worst of it. There are some good people on here who can relate to even your weridest things - which can be comforting.
That was like 3 years ago and I felt awesome so I left SPW... now I've had some relapse so I'm back. But this site is very non-judgemental, so enjoy and post your little heart out!
What's CBT like... I was always to chicken to try it? But maybe I should...
Aayway, welcome! and Enjoy! Talk to me whenever you want... that's what I'm here for
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject: hi edith
hi edith , iv been on so many online forums with no response so thank you so much for replying ! someone is reading ! can i ask how u managed the first time ,that u got it under control ?
Hmmm... it may sound stupid but I just pretended with all my might that I didn't have it. I kind of approached life like I was "acting" like I didn't have it, which felt weird... and then eventually it felt less weird and the firends that I miraculously managed to make while I was "acting" stuck around when I felt like I was "acting" less and really being myself. I'm not sure how it happended... it took a while but I guess I just thought (and more importantly, truly beleived) that if my life was so shitty than there was nothing to lose by experimenting with normalcy.
One day, I think when the 7-11 ran out of appetizing options and I was starving I decided to (with much vommiting and swaeting beforehand) to actually venture outsideto the food court and buy lunch where all the other students did. And much to my chagrin, nobody even noticed I was there. I did that everyday afterwards and even when one day I spilt the contents of my open change purse all over the ground when I was getting ready to pay and had people staring and clammouring to help me pick up all the change, I still came back the next day. I was blushing and felt so exposed, but another part of me thought, "Now, thats pretty funny!" and I let the sad part go. After about a year I had a new job and was making friends that Iactually saw after work (instead of just in the safe environment of the kunch room). I realised that other people don't see you as strange or different, they see you as normal - the only reason they start to see you as not normal is whenyou start to act different around them I think.
None of this is probably really helpful - it seems like rambling to me - but that's because I can't quite pinpoint what it was that caused the change... it was maybe a few things, but mainly a change in attitutde toward things I guess.
I'm back though because I moved to a foreign country and don't speak the language and can't seem to meet any other foreigners... it's made those old "Oh my god... I can't leave the house, they're all going tolaugh at me" feelings come back a little, but I'm trying to cope.
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:34 pm Post subject: hi
edith, it helps me just hearing that your physical syptons , [ the vommiting etc] is the same as mine . the thought of doing something out of routeen for me is what makes me vommit , even at my g/f parents house ,
i wish i could be of help to you !! but im a virgin to this ,iv shut myself away ...
for me its always "the what if" factor , what if this happens to me , what if im going crazy , what if no- one understands - what if i collapse and no-one is there to help ,,,
Joined: Oct 13, 2003 Posts: 26 Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:48 am Post subject:
Hi there,
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience on other forums with people not replying. I am also from Scotland (Southside Glasgow) and just wanted to say there's a helpful online community for Scottish people with Social Anxiety at www.sascotland.co.uk/forum
The good thing about a Scottish site is that some of us are able to meet up in person occasionally, I appreciate that might seem impossible to you right now but it's a possibility for the future. Also on Monday nights after 9pm we have little online chats at
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