Back Online

[Horatio]

Just a post to say hi, Im finally back up and running online.

I wish I could say that moving out of home after spending the best part of 5 months in bed was a good idea, but on the whole I really just feel like a fish out of water and am getting more and more frustrated.

I guess I expected that by getting out there and trying my best I would overcome my socialphobia but it is in fact the opposite, the more I get out there and try the worse my condition becomes.

So much effort goes into trying to make sure my socialphobia doesn't affect my work that I feel utterly exhausted at the end of the day and my stress levels are extremely high, not from the work but from silly things like having to buy my own food at supermarkets or catching the bus to town

Being around strangers in town etc isn't helping me make friends, Im the lonliest I have ever been and simply being in public seems to have affected me very badly. I am now extremely paranoid of people and experience unpleasent flashbacks from being bullied when I was younger which Ive never really had before.

On the upside work has been going well despite my weaknesses, my constant worry is that my stutter, work jumbling and lack of confidence will affect my work (which it does) but I try to minimise that. For instance emailing people when I can instead of phoning them

Ive now exchanged the awkwardness of going on a bus for biking to work instead. I still feel like everyone I bike past is looking down at me or laughing at me but at least Im not trapped within the confides of a bus worrying about wether or not the stranger sitting next to me has noticed my nervous sweat pouring down my brow or my out of control nervous knee jiggle

I always knew that moving cities and taking on a big project involving working from an office was always going to be difficult, Im just dissapointed that my efforts haven't been rewarded with either company or at least an improvement in my socialphobia/depression/lonliness/crap

I am now a lonlier, more frustrated, less emotive, weirder, angrier person than I was before

 

[LilMissTragic]

Welcome back Horatio. I wish things had goner better for you but the thing is you got out there and did it, ok so it didn't go as well as you expected but its early days yet. Nice to see you back anyways!

 

[Nightshade]

I've moved cities several times (a requirement of the kind of work I do), and in the past it was always a rude shock that I was still the same person and that all my problems were still there.

My latest move was the worst for my anxiety problems, the really worrying thing that happened was that my anxiety started getting a whole lot wider and a whole lot worse. The best thing I can say is that I got desperate enough to ask for help and actually have made some progress as a result of that.

I am actually happier here than I was before I moved, I have made some friends in some situations, it is just in others that things are worse.

I always tried to keep exposing myself to situations and thought that this should help and it didn't. It was so frustrating. When I read my first book on social anxiety and it explained why this happened to people with SA it really helped me.

Hang in there. Determination and persistence (which you obviously have) will be rewarded, even if it takes time.

 

[Horatio]

where did you go for help? I really feel as if I have exhausted every avenue medically wise, Im sick of counsellors, psyciatrists, psycologists and other people with important looking certificates on their walls. And Im sick of the medication they insist upon drugging me with which doesn't have any affect on my socialphobia but plenty of unpleasent side effects.

Im currently seeing noone, currently on no medication besides short term tranquilisers for when I have panic attacks.

I've now moved around so much that I no longer have false expectations of improvement to the same degree. In the last two years I have lived in all four main centres of NZ and its the same story wherever I go.

Despite my efforts I always live a solitary lonely life and find even being in public increasingly difficult.

 

[tommydog]

hey you are getting life experience if anything horatio that cant possibly be a bad thing. this illness is a real fuckin shit i know .. but brother anything rather than staying in bed all day has got to be seen as progress surely. atleast now your not just rotting away in your house .. your doing something.

remember man .. it sounds like youv gone from nothing to having alot of responsibity, thats gotta be a shock to your system .. but maybe given time out there in the real world you will improve eventually.

please keep us posted

 

[Nightshade]

The two things that helped most were CBT from a psychologist recommended by my GP and Gillian Baxter's self-help book. I've linked to it in some of my other posts, but I'm about to go away for the weekend and don't have time to track it down.

I think there is a lot of variation in health professionals and finding the right one is probably key, which can leave you frustratedly working through all the not helpful ones without getting anywhere.

I'm happy to talk more about my experiences and what has helped me, but I'm going away in about 2 hours and haven't packed yet (aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!, so I really have to get off the internet). I'm relatively new to SA treatment and I think I'm lucky to be responding well to standard treatment, but I've been treated for depression for more than a decade before anyone had any idea of the things that were actually causing it.

Anyway really must go, but hang in there, and however afraid you are feeling, don't feel like a coward, what you are doing proves enormous courage!

 

[Anonymous]

It's great to hear from you Horatio, but not so good to hear your not adapting to well. Give it some more time though, maybe you'll adapt a routine that will enable you to start getting out and socalizing a bit and more importantly-- enjoying it.

You have been extremely corageous following your dreams, and certainly a good example to all of us! Don't give up the ship, hang in there and keep fighting, you have done a splendid job so far!