blue-roses
Well-known member
I hate doing these introductions...!
I'm Sarah, I'm 18 and I'm studying speech pathology. My first year will be over soon - thank GOD. I live in a dorm during the week and it's absolute hell for someone with SA.
Basic facts about me, hrmmm...
Favourite book: The Glass Menagerie (okay, it's a play, but I love it and recommend it to anyone with SA; when I'm having a particularly bad day I go back and read over parts I've underlined because they describe me to a T...)
Favourite movie: The Blue Angel (1930 German film with Marlene Dietrich)
Favourite music: Where to begin? A lot of things from 1910-1975, and not too much before or after, but there are some exceptions. My favourites are Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, the White Stripes, David Bowie, Sarah Blasko, Melanie Safka, a lot of Chicago blues, Motown...I dunno. My taste in music is problematic when I talk to most people my age, hahaha. I don't know what they're on about and they usually don't know what I'm on about either. They're short conversations.
Favourite TV shows: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS. Oh God, how I love them. Nothing cheers me up more. I also like older British comedies like A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Monty Python, Not Only...But Also (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore). Anything with Stephen Fry is good. I also like music quiz shows, yelling answers at the TV...and I love Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes.
As I said, I'm studying speech pathology. I had the grades to study medicine but not the self-belief. People told me once I'd made my mind up in the last two years of school that speech path was a "waste" for me and that I could do anything. I didn't believe them, so didn't do the prerequisite subjects (i.e. chemistry), and when results came out and I got a percentile ranking of 99.60 (max is 99.95) I couldn't even change my course preferences. I don't think I could handle being a doctor anyway - I wouldn't mind the years of study but I couldn't handle the intern years, high-stress, so much responsibility, being yelled at and forced to work 48-hour shifts... The fact that I "could have done so much better" has completely overshadowed the initial sense of pride I had from getting such good school marks and has made my SA even worse in the past few months; I feel totally useless...
(Not-so-)brief history of my SA: My dad had it and dropped out of university about the same age as I am now. He also brought me up, essentially, while my mum went out to work and my older brothers were at school. So I had very little socialisation as a small child and my dad was very strict and would catastrophise, making a big deal out of everything I did wrong. I remember one time when I wet myself on my swing set and my dad screamed and swore at me. I was three. The words "bloody hell" were the worst swearwords I knew and it scared me! I feel like my dad has always blamed ME personally whenever I've done the wrong thing, rather than just telling me off for doing it, if that makes sense. I can't really blame him, though...he's had anxiety and emotional problems his whole life and he was abused as a child.
I remember my first day of playgroup. I was carried in by my dad and as soon as he put me down, a little boy jumped out from behind one of those plastic slides, I screamed and had to be comforted by my dad again. Pretty much the same pattern now whenever I go into a new situation, only now I don't have someone there to pick me up and hug me...
So I've always been shy, but the event I really like to "blame" for my SA is something that happened when I was 14. I was in Art class, mucking around with a friend and quoting a sketch from a TV show. One of the more popular girls - whom I'd been friendly with before that - made the "L" sign and called me a loser in front of all the other girls in the class. I pretended I didn't care and made some stupid comment back, but I ruminated over it for the rest of the day and decided during the lunchbreak - consciously! - that people couldn't be trusted, even when you thought they were your friends, and that I would pretty much never talk to people again. After a few weeks my close friends said they'd noticed how withdrawn and sad I'd become, and I've been like that ever since.
I've tried to get jobs - I worked at a pizza restaurant - manning the PHONES
- for two nights, but left because they weren't really training me right and just...everything... I worked at a fast-food place for a month and loved preparing the food, but lasted one shift on the front counter before I quit. I'd been abused by some customers for just standing there without knowing what I was doing, because I couldn't bring myself to ask for help from the other girls. I've just applied at Target and I really hope I can stick this one out if I get it - I feel so useless to still have no work, no boyfriend, no licence (I am getting there) well into my first year of uni.
I also have some slight BDD-type issues - self-diagnosed and probably just an extension of the SA rather than a major issue on its own; it comes and goes.
I'm seeing a counsellor at uni and she gives me homework - in the next two weeks I have to make one "silly" phone call a day, e.g. ringing Kmart to ask if they stock red towels :: - but I don't like her approach. University counsellors aren't exactly specialists in anxiety disorders. I'm disappointed that she didn't even take a comprehensive history and that she dismissed my comments about my upbringing - she just focuses on the here and now, and what I really need is some self-esteem coaching or whatever it's called.
Okay, sorry for the long post. A habit of mine. I also don't tend to stick around these forums for long, once I decide I'm being a nuisance or I'm being ignored...so if I or my posts suddenly go missing, that'll be why!
I'm Sarah, I'm 18 and I'm studying speech pathology. My first year will be over soon - thank GOD. I live in a dorm during the week and it's absolute hell for someone with SA.
Basic facts about me, hrmmm...
Favourite book: The Glass Menagerie (okay, it's a play, but I love it and recommend it to anyone with SA; when I'm having a particularly bad day I go back and read over parts I've underlined because they describe me to a T...)
Favourite movie: The Blue Angel (1930 German film with Marlene Dietrich)
Favourite music: Where to begin? A lot of things from 1910-1975, and not too much before or after, but there are some exceptions. My favourites are Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, the White Stripes, David Bowie, Sarah Blasko, Melanie Safka, a lot of Chicago blues, Motown...I dunno. My taste in music is problematic when I talk to most people my age, hahaha. I don't know what they're on about and they usually don't know what I'm on about either. They're short conversations.
Favourite TV shows: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS. Oh God, how I love them. Nothing cheers me up more. I also like older British comedies like A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Monty Python, Not Only...But Also (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore). Anything with Stephen Fry is good. I also like music quiz shows, yelling answers at the TV...and I love Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes.
As I said, I'm studying speech pathology. I had the grades to study medicine but not the self-belief. People told me once I'd made my mind up in the last two years of school that speech path was a "waste" for me and that I could do anything. I didn't believe them, so didn't do the prerequisite subjects (i.e. chemistry), and when results came out and I got a percentile ranking of 99.60 (max is 99.95) I couldn't even change my course preferences. I don't think I could handle being a doctor anyway - I wouldn't mind the years of study but I couldn't handle the intern years, high-stress, so much responsibility, being yelled at and forced to work 48-hour shifts... The fact that I "could have done so much better" has completely overshadowed the initial sense of pride I had from getting such good school marks and has made my SA even worse in the past few months; I feel totally useless...
(Not-so-)brief history of my SA: My dad had it and dropped out of university about the same age as I am now. He also brought me up, essentially, while my mum went out to work and my older brothers were at school. So I had very little socialisation as a small child and my dad was very strict and would catastrophise, making a big deal out of everything I did wrong. I remember one time when I wet myself on my swing set and my dad screamed and swore at me. I was three. The words "bloody hell" were the worst swearwords I knew and it scared me! I feel like my dad has always blamed ME personally whenever I've done the wrong thing, rather than just telling me off for doing it, if that makes sense. I can't really blame him, though...he's had anxiety and emotional problems his whole life and he was abused as a child.
I remember my first day of playgroup. I was carried in by my dad and as soon as he put me down, a little boy jumped out from behind one of those plastic slides, I screamed and had to be comforted by my dad again. Pretty much the same pattern now whenever I go into a new situation, only now I don't have someone there to pick me up and hug me...
So I've always been shy, but the event I really like to "blame" for my SA is something that happened when I was 14. I was in Art class, mucking around with a friend and quoting a sketch from a TV show. One of the more popular girls - whom I'd been friendly with before that - made the "L" sign and called me a loser in front of all the other girls in the class. I pretended I didn't care and made some stupid comment back, but I ruminated over it for the rest of the day and decided during the lunchbreak - consciously! - that people couldn't be trusted, even when you thought they were your friends, and that I would pretty much never talk to people again. After a few weeks my close friends said they'd noticed how withdrawn and sad I'd become, and I've been like that ever since.
I've tried to get jobs - I worked at a pizza restaurant - manning the PHONES
- for two nights, but left because they weren't really training me right and just...everything... I worked at a fast-food place for a month and loved preparing the food, but lasted one shift on the front counter before I quit. I'd been abused by some customers for just standing there without knowing what I was doing, because I couldn't bring myself to ask for help from the other girls. I've just applied at Target and I really hope I can stick this one out if I get it - I feel so useless to still have no work, no boyfriend, no licence (I am getting there) well into my first year of uni.I also have some slight BDD-type issues - self-diagnosed and probably just an extension of the SA rather than a major issue on its own; it comes and goes.
I'm seeing a counsellor at uni and she gives me homework - in the next two weeks I have to make one "silly" phone call a day, e.g. ringing Kmart to ask if they stock red towels :
: - but I don't like her approach. University counsellors aren't exactly specialists in anxiety disorders. I'm disappointed that she didn't even take a comprehensive history and that she dismissed my comments about my upbringing - she just focuses on the here and now, and what I really need is some self-esteem coaching or whatever it's called.Okay, sorry for the long post. A habit of mine. I also don't tend to stick around these forums for long, once I decide I'm being a nuisance or I'm being ignored...so if I or my posts suddenly go missing, that'll be why!
