Does anybody know about your phobia?

[oszapo]

I did tell my boyfriend but he didn belive ,me first he said im usually loud and im not like that ,yeah i was mad 2 as other times in company i feel like gonna pass out and im shakin very bad but thats so embarassin that i hide it as everyone is just normal so i cant tell in all that time i shit myself!!?I dont think it helps to tell anyway but was nice to get it out maybe in the future it will help who knows.

 

[Marvolo]

Aha... I pretty agree with you.

As for the poll - there should be added an option "Only my doctor knows", I see now. :idea:

 

[IceLad]

Apart from the healthcare professions I've seen in the past, no one knows about my SP. The closest I've come is telling a few people that I suffer with my nerves (which to a degree is true, but it's still a long way from the truth).

 

[den1]

Only my mum and dad and my ex-g freind.

Was pissed ages ago and let slip to a mate that I might have got drunk so easy because of my medication.

You should have seen the look on his face, as if I were a leper or somethin!

 

[Fidgey]

I NEARLY told my doctor, when I was getting diagnosed for Tourette's, I mean it was on the tip of my tongue, but I chickened out at the last second. My mom was in the room with us, and seeing as I haven't told her anything about it I figured she would get embarassed or something and try to cover up for me. I kind of regretted it afterwords, because I'm sure it would have felt good to just get it off my chest.

It sucks when you are younger, you depend so much on your parents.
When I first saw a pyschologist at 12 years old I neglected to mention the fact that I had OCD out of shame. These days I swapped out the OCD and took on social anxiety. It was a shit trade

So now I'm debating on whether I will tell my closest friend, I know by now he realizes i'm not very outgoing, but I'm running out of excuses for not hanging out or going places when he calls, and don't really want to lose him since he's the only friend I see outside of school.

Bleh.

I was in the same situation and in the end despite his persistance my friend stopped calling.
I am now a loner but for some reason I don't mind but should you decide to climb out of the hole it as not going to be easy.
You have 2 scenarios:
1. You keep making excuses and your friend will think that you don't like him anymore or grow impatient akin to my circumstances

2. You tell him and he/she either accepts it or they do not.
It is a tough one.

Good luck.

 

[JamesMorgan]

Whether you tell other people or not does not matter. What matters is that you understand deeply that 'what you have' is actually nothing more than an elaborate fantasy your mind is telling you, you are simply reacting to it.

How can i possibly say this after years of phobia/anxiety panic attacks and so on and so on? How patronizing is that right? Wrong.

The point is this:

You apparently have 'this problem'. You have two choices, you either tell others or you do not. Now, because your mind has conditioned itself to believe in this nonsense there are two paths your mind takes.

1. You tell others - mixed reactions. Some get it, some don't. You may feel better like a weight has lifted or you might feel persecuted for having an 'illness'. Your anxiety gets worse or gets better. You still have this thing in your mind telling you that what others think about you is so important.

2 You do not tell others - you go it alone. Some get you, some don't. You may feel better for not telling others, you may feel persecuted for having an 'illness'. Your anxiety gets worse or gets better. You still have this thing in your mind telling you that what others think about you is so important.

The mind is extremely creative in weaving wonderful story lines in your imagination that literally create the world you live in and influencing your actions. Essentially if you tell others it doesn't mean you will be better off, it may actually stimulate 'What others think of me' in a more potent fashion or it may not. The same is true if you keep it to yourself.

Basically, you have to know it is there to be able to accept it but likewise the most important point is that you cease believing in it. Anxiety is not you. You have to see it's deceptive nature and hold it has over your mind making you believe a reality which you know is actually just make believe but having no idea how to stop making you feel this way.

In general it's good to tell certain people such as doctors, close friends and so forth so we feel we have support but it depends on our capacity and where we are at because either way our anxiety will still be lying to us in either situation. If it tell people, then what, if i don't then what? Now they know, what are they thinking and so on.

We shouldn't hide from our anxiety though, we should face it. Face it internally. You could tell the whole world about your phobia and anxiety yet not necessarily be facing it fully on the inside, you may still be under its spell. Contrastingly though, those who do tell others see that there is actually nothing to be afraid of, they see the illusion.

To summarize, it's what helps you best. The hard truth is this: It's your responsibility, a creation of your mind, only you can overcome it in your mind.

James

 

[louieann34]

My family only knows about it..Its hard to say to friends and other people about it.

 

[PhantomPod]

I don't know that I've straight out told anybody, but I've no doubt that they know. I'd say that my family and few amount of friends no, and I suspect that it's relatively obvious to others that I don't know quite as well.

 

[Fighter86]

My family knows. I really didn't want to tell them, but I was left with no choice later on because I needed time out from school and had to give them an explanation why. Two problems then surfaced. 1) They really didn't understand the situation. Till today, my parents still feel I'm not going to school because I really just want to stop schooling (they have been thinking this for like I don't know, 3 years now i think). My brother did a little, because he is what you can somewhat call as a recovering SA phobic, although he has not been diagnosed with SA before, and does not know the full extent of SA and its complications and such. 2) My mom's quite the motor mouth, so I think what was suppose to be a shared secret among the four people in my immediate family turned out to be an open secret many other extended family members came to know within a week, as well as her friends from church :roll:


As for friends, only one very close friend I used to have knows. She doesn't know what exactly is wrong with me, because I didn't quite know how to explain it to her as well at that time when I was newly diagnosed, but she does know I was seeing a psychologist. We stopped speaking to each other many months back after we had an intense quarrel, and my guess is that she most probably has been spreading the news that I have problems and was seeing a psychologist. Damn! she's seeing a psychologist! Something MUST be wrong with her !!?! Yep, I bet she's been going on this way since we stopped talking to each other. Psychological issues are not well understood by my society and generally a social stigma so my guess is they are having a field day with it :roll: But its been so long since I saw those classmates that I hated anyway so I guess it doesn't really matter now.

 

[xtina_fan81]

I think I was mislead about what effect telling people would have on me and my anxiety.

Before anyone at school/ my friends knew, I always thought that if they knew it would change things and that I would then be more comfortable around them because they knew why I was different from most people and why I was so resreved & quiet. But it didnt change much at all. It didnt alter the way i felt around people.

Everytime people would make a comment about me Id think to ymself "well if they knew they wouldn't say it.", which was actually true for me because when i told some people, they felt really guilty about how they had mocked the fact that I was so quiet. Bottom line is people just get defensive when they dont understand something, and use whatever it takes to make them feel more comfortable with it.

But it is important to know the people who are worth telling; the people who treat you the same as they treat someone who doesn't have SA, and to hell with the people who use it as an excuse to single you out at every opportunity.

 

[Niles]

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's my greatest miserable secret! Yes but psychiatrists and the like don't count. Noone that i know personally knows. Having them know would be the equivalent of giving them a gun and telling them to shoot me. That especially rings true for my family who are a pack of slathering wolves just waiting to pin point your weak spot so they pounce in for the attack. I refuse to set myself up as a lame wilder beast.

 

[vj288]

I've never told anyone, but I think it has been inferred that at least something is up.

 

[Phoenixx]

Only one friend knows about my phobia and thankfully, he doesn't treat me any different. If anything, he understands and he's always there when I do need to talk. I basically keep my SA a huge miserable secret from everyone else.

 

[JamesSmith]

I don't really see why I would need to tell friends and family what they already know. It's obvious I have social anxiety, and my family and friends all know I have it. One of my friends was talking to me and told me about how everyone knows I have SA, how blatantly obvious it is considering I'm a nice guy yet I struggle to talk to anyone. The thing is that most of them don't understand the SA. The people that don't know me just think I'm a prick cuz I don't talk to them.

 

[RN3]

I wonder why we hide and feel so ashamed about our phobia's. At this moment I am really trying to figure out why we don't talk about it more freely. I have a big loving family and none of them seem to have this condition.

 

[JamesSmith]

I wonder why we hide and feel so ashamed about our phobia's. At this moment I am really trying to figure out why we don't talk about it more freely. I have a big loving family and none of them seem to have this condition.

Because it's a weakness that no one is proud of. You are basically telling people that you are afraid of being in or afraid of talking in social situations. I've found the only thing to be proud of is that some of us are able to swallow our pride and be humble enough to admit a very negative quality that we have. Most people don't have SAD, so to tell someone you have means you are telling them that you are different than 95% of human beings. Because of these things, I see why so many people are ashamed to tell people and don't like discussing SAD freely.

 

[Kiwong]

Yes, I told everyone at work and in the sporting community I participate. Some people don't believe, and people still jump to conclusions about my anxiety.

 

[WeirdyMcGee]

I assume everyone knows... it's kind of hard not to notice that there's something odd about me when I live out of my room and don't bother 'trying to have a life' - refuse to leave my house... have piles of bottles of medication on my dresser...

I guess some people could be pretty dense though- or they just don't want to talk about it. Even if I talked to a 'friend' about it, they wouldn't get it. Not the agoraphobia aspect, anyways... not many people understand what it's like unless they're there as well.

I don't hide it but I don't make it a priority to tell someone unless they ask.

 

[marwan kamel]

my parents only because unfortunately they have it too
i didnt tell my friends and they dont think of my having social phobia
they assume i'm quiet less talkative person
also i avoid situations where my social anxiety will be evident to everyone

 

[*Amy*]

I have more or less told a couple of friends and my sister about it. Not that I don't want it to be known, but sometimes I fear that people won't react normally and that they will think I am exaggerating. Anyway, if the topic comes out, I think I will from now on