Hi, another newbie here!

V

vitalis

Well-known member
Hi everyone. This is likely to be another introduction (so run away! lol), but I'm new to the community so I guess I must start for the beginning. Just before start, I'm afraid I do not handle the English language enough to write in a proper way, so please forgive my mistakes.

So this is me, let's say Vitalis, male, 21 years old, living in Catalonia, Spain, and I have Social Phobia. I've been following this forum for a while and reading some of the other member's experiences, and I must say that helps to see some people that have the same problems than you. I suppose being socially isolated makes even more difficult to find people with the same problems, so I was happy to find this site.

My problem with social phobia (or social anxiety as I've read in other places) comes basically from my childhood, when I had asthma. The problem was not the illness itself, because I got rid of it in 4-5 years thanks to the treatment. The problem was that this illness kicked my health, and made me really prone to catch colds and flus, so my mom overprotected me for this. My life was simple: home-school-home-school... I was just allowed to get out with some hood mates when I was 14, and just the couple of summer months.

This circumstance made me change. I was a nice child, really funny and happy, but this obviously changed my behavior and character. I was not allowed to play football with the local team, I was not allowed to do the homework in the library with my mates, I was not allowed to go to the parties, I was not allowed to... plus, people in the village started treating me and my family like if we were from some kind of sect, because neither me and my parents are very prone to social activities... and it contribute to my shyness.

At 16 yo I had the opportunity to leave the village and go to the city with my grandma. I suppose I saw that like the panacea, but of course I was too optimist to think that I could overcome this without many efforts. And I'm here since there, but obviously the problem still exists. I've been finishing my studies 4 years, worked in a couple of places but the situation is the same. I've met new people there and as I've always been I'm kind to everyone, maybe too much, but there's some kind of wall that makes impossible to go on with relationships, going to places, etc... you all know what I mean.

And I'm still here. Now I've ended the studies and started to work. I have no friends to hang out and stuff, and basically my life is bed-work-pc-bed, except the weekends that is bed-pc-bed, with some basic biological functions between. I've passed various phases of this, and there are better days and seasons, but specially this year I feel pretty bad due to some other factors of my family that have nothing to do with that (health problems).

Anyway, although I'm a total pessimist and self-destructive, I have some strange positive feeling sometimes, and I want to think that everything has two faces. SP is obviously terrible, but at least I think it has also developed my personality in a different way than the usual. I don't smoke, don't take drugs, don't drink, and instead of getting out, have fun and learning about how life goes out there, I was stuck at home reading books, encyclopedias, getting curious by everything happening, learning languages (4 for now) and always trying to learn more things and try to feel that my time is not a full waste. This is the way that I show myself I'm not a useless bunch of cells that one day will disappear.

Well, I guess this was too long. Thanks for reading. :wink:
 
Len

Len

Well-known member
I think you are using your time productively and you sound like a very interesting person. But at the same time, I think it is important to be sociable as we are social beings after all.

Why don't you try some dating/friend websites - if they have them on your side of the world. Use your brain power and find a hobby that you can share with other people.
 
V

vitalis

Well-known member
villacjs said:
Welcome Vitalis to social phobia world!

Your english is great :D
Click to expand...

Thanks very much, it really helps. :)

Len said:
Why don't you try some dating/friend websites - if they have them on your side of the world.
Click to expand...

Ehm... I'm from Europe, of course we have them... :roll:

Seriously, I'm really skeptical in those dating and friendship sites. Plus, I hate chatting IRC, MSN... so the chances to find people online are really low. Anyway, a year and half ago I found some penpals to practice various languages, and they were great, but it's hard to keep a relation at distance and sooner or later it simply ends.

And dating sites... if I'm skeptical in friendship, just imagine in love... I've never had a girlfriend nor something similar, and I'm not really encouraged since every time that I'm in love I have a really bad time because I know it's impossible to be loved in return.

The past summer was terrible, because I found a girl that seemed to be somewhat interested on me, and then I started changing my behavior since the point that I think during a month I lost the Social Phobia and I changed completely. I was optimist, got out without thinking on what the other would think on me, bough a cell phone, lost most of the fears that I had with other people... I was "on fire" or something similar. Now I can't even remind some moments or my thoughts then, it was like another person. But in the end our relationship couldn't go further, and I not just went back to the point I was, but even worse. I was without job, and with a depression state that I never felt before. And after three horrible months of extreme isolation and depression I decided not to worry more about love.

Oh, how many "I" in the last paragraph, that must not be good. :lol: But thanks for trying. :wink:
 
villacjs

villacjs

Well-known member
Vitalis

What are you doing to overcome your SA/SP? Surely you can do something with your english skills - tourism etc.

You a Barca fan by any chance?
 
V

vitalis

Well-known member
villacjs said:
Vitalis

What are you doing to overcome your SA/SP? Surely you can do something with your english skills - tourism etc.

You a Barca fan by any chance?
Click to expand...

To overcome SA? Basically, nothing but complaining and joining this forum. :lol: I haven't found (actually, searched) any therapy group in my city, and I don't take pills either. The first thing is because I don't feel good and secure enough to try to find a place for this, and the second is because I still want to be healthy and I don't like to take medicines if it's not strictly necessary. And now let's go for more serious things...

Yes, I'm a Barça fan. (and actually an Espanyol one as well, I'm kinda weird lol) :eek: There's an important community of Barça fans or Catalan people in Australia? :p
 
recluse

recluse

Well-known member
Hi welcome. You'r English is perfect! An English person could not have typed any better.
 
V

vitalis

Well-known member
Wow, I suppose that reviving old threads is not very ethical if not just simply forbidden like in other forums, but since I've come back and completely forgot that I ever entered, you just can't guess the surprise I had when saw that I posted 18 messages, just thought someone must have hacked my account... lol Anyway, it has been two years (now I'm 23) since the post, and a lot of things have happened in my life.

Apart that I'm sad to see my English skill has degraded over time, I still have SA and my situation regarding it is roughly the same, but what has changed is the amount of time I waste in thinking about it; I guess after so much pain (when I wrote that intro I was stuck in a depressive state mainly due to work issues), my SA has just find a way not to get solved, but just to simply let me live a bit better: I recognize the symptoms of Avoidance Personality Disorder, but I try to fake myself and convince that I have no such thing, even if I "avoid" to keep any kind of social contact just like before.

I found out that the more the terms SA and AvPD were stuck on my head, the more worried I was, so my brain decided to avoid them. I'm conscious that I have this ****, but I simply act if I had not. So I live and try to act like I don't have this, and if I'm just weird in my social behavior is because I'm a strange geek, a kind of intellectual loner or something like this; thankfully I'm not a nerd nor conceited at all, and since I always try to help people and understand them, people have a good opinion about me so I feel comfortable. So everybody assumes this role of me and just don't ask me for more: in a few words, I think I've found out a way to keep my SA under control; pros: I don't get very depressed about it anymore; cons: I'm lying to myself and the situation is not solved at all, on the contrary; as you can see I keep trying to find occasionally sites like this this to vent.

So that's basically what has changed since I wrote the OP, really hope someone can find it useful or interesting. Cheers!
 
V

vitalis

Well-known member
Well, this sounds crazy but here am I, again! I haven't been much active in the forum since I signed in but something makes me keep visiting it in a kind of two-year waves and remembering there's this place in the net. Maybe it's like because this is the only place where I wrote openly my problems in the past, and I feel compelled to write about my progresses here.

So after revisiting this, yeah, that was the "me" of four years ago, and the "me" a couple of years ago. And I'm proud to say that a lot of things have changed on me this past two years. What I like about following this thread on this forum is that I can see my personal progress in a clear way and can keep track of it, and nothing would make me feel better than if it could help someone else that is following some similar steps, to overcome this.

First, I'm going to start with the best advice I can give you on this: I can just speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure a way people with SA/AVpD use to feel is the sensation we are losing a precious time of our lives. We are young, and life passes quite fast, and this sense of haste is embedded on our way of life. We breathe it every second in the society, the culture, the ads... but this is the biggest mistake we can fall on. Life is not a single thread which we must follow with predetermined phases we all have to pass at the same time; instead, one thing takes to another. It's probably not possible to overcome a period of isolation until you really suffer from it, and maybe this doesn't bring you to heaven directly but instead to an intermediate state where you're going to suffer setbacks, but those are going to increase your experience about life and take you to the next round.

I know I may sound disgustingly optimistic like if I had overcome SA totally and come here to boast with a kind of superiority sense, but in fact I haven't and never intend that at all. All I want to do is express that at last I can see the end of the tunnel, and it depends on things that are now on my hand to do. This is in my opinion what it's important, since in the worst moments you really feel you're worth nothing and you're always gonna get trapped into this **** forever no matter what you do.

On past year I started socializing a bit more and feeling a lot better from this. But it was not a sudden change of behavior appearing from nowhere even it is seemed so; I passed from several stages on this illness, and because of all my experiences, I somewhat found out the way I could get out of this. Since that day I'm trying to follow it, and even if it's damn slow and I've suffered setbacks, I feel I'm on the right track, something like 60% done. Yeah, I haven't finished yet, and I must be ready for failure, but the difference with before is that now I'm also ready to succeed, and this is the gamechanger I've found out after those tough 9 years. The sole feeling that I know which path to follow makes me feel secure, and it helps to give a sort of positive feedback loop, specially for people like us, who often suffer from negative loops.

Hi again and thanks for reading! Lots and lots of luck but specially strength; one thing depends on the other.
 
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