Holypaulie, in my experience, doctor's are not always useful (but you may be lucky). A lot of doctor's do not understand mental illnesses. Your best option would be to try something like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). It works by replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts and takes you through a serious of exercises. For example:
You take a trip to the mall and buy some groceries. Whilst packing your food into bags, the checkout lady starts to go fast, so you barely have time to pack. All the groceries pile up and it appears everyone is looking at you, wondering why you are so slow! You have an almighty anxiety attack.
CBT would take you through the following sorts of questions:
- What emotion are you feeling at the time? fear/embarassment etc
- Quantify your emotion on a scale of 1 to 10
- Rationalise, eg if you're feeling fear then fear of what? eg are you worried the shoppers behind will become aggressive because they have to wait longer?
- Challenge your assumptions. Are you actually being slow in packing away your food? Is anyone really that bothered about waiting a few more seconds before they get served?
- Can the situation be improved? maybe you could ask the checkout lady to help you bag up?
- Reassess. What emotion are you feeling now? Quantify how you feel again, be aware that you've made yourself feel better.
Hope this helps.
Jodie
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