Prospect of a better future has gone

[MarkR]

Hi,

I am quite new to this board and so i will provide an overview to my past-experiences with social phobia and how it is impacting on my life.

Firstly, when i was about age 14 and attending secondary school i became increasingly physically ill and this impacted on my mental wellbeing. When it got to the point where i couldn't even stand up and walk due to feeling very dizzy and lop-sided, me and my dad felt that it would be a good time to visit the doctor. The doctor, in shock found out that Diabetes type 1 (insulin dependent) was causing me to feel this way and i was admitted to hospital immediately as i had already lost 2-3 stone and was under weight for my age, and i don't think anyone was sure as to how long i had before i went into a diabetic induced coma.

For a number of months i stayed at home and received lots of help and support from various nurses who helped me inject myself with insulin. This is a hormone which reduces the toxic level of sugar that had over spilt into my blood stream and wasn't being neutralised. Being at home also enabled me to put on weight, keep in touch with friends (via the sad usage of a phone and various messengers) and try to regain some normality to my life.

After, a while i returned to my secondary school, but all wasn't the same has it was prior to leaving due to illness. I was very gittery and couldn't stand looking at people; i seemed to think that everybody had preconceived ideas about me. Things like assemblies and waiting in corridors with people made me sweat excessively. Enduring assemblies (which simply consists of listening to school representitives etc.) was not bareable, everytime i looked around at somebody i saw morphed faces which were grinning and laughing at me. One scary factor was when i walked home from school to my home, everytime a car went by i saw the driver leaning forward, pointing and laughing at me. This was very distressing for me, and knowing it was all mind trickery just made the situation more unconceivable. I did come up with some coping mechanisms under certain circumstances:

For example, if my head suddenly jerked due to the muscles in my neck tensing and caused me to look in a different direction, i'd simply act casual and pretend that i was looking at the bird's outside. In reality i was having a panic attack and felt as though i was possessed.

And, also, for example, if i was walking through the corridor and a intimidating group was walking towards me i'd look at my feet whilst walking or avoid them some other way; sometimes by turning around!

I must point out that, although things were not this bad prior to leaving my school, i was bullied and attacked and was only afraid of what was happening in real time. I did not have the kind of fears of school/people which i experienced after my time off with the illness.

Over the months, i finally spoke to my mum about the situation and we decided to discuss my problems with a general practitioner. The GP refered me to a child anxiety clinic where over time the psychiatrist diagnosed me with stress induced diabetes, Social Anxiety disorder and Aspergers syndrome.

I am now age 18 and despite going to child clinics and clinics for people in adulthood i still have my social phoebia with me in college and outdoors. A private theraphist has thankfully helped me get used to short outings and boarding buses, but my anxiety is at it's highest in college simply because it's resembles the enviroment of my secondary school. I am struggling with coping with the crowds and do feel my education is once again being threatened.

Thank you for reading this brief story, can anyone relate to my story or would anyone like to comment?

Mark.

[ultirian]

After reading this I thought i would give you some input as I seem to be in the sort of same situation myself, although I do not feel that it is as extreme as this.

I had a bolt of really bad anxiety when I was in London and it seemed to have changed me completely. I don't really function like I used to function. Before London I was a happy go lucky guy and I was pretty brazen at dealing with life. I got worried about my health, The fact that I was in a city that I didn't want to be in and then suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. All that fear of death, weight loss, Social breakdown, The works. I thankfully am not physically ill (Had blood tests and things with the doctors) and I hope you are dealing with the diabetes well. :)

But after I left London and came back to Cardiff the only way I could see myself sorting things out is by hitting the top of my emotional mountain with a nuke. If you get what I mean.

It seems that your top of the mountain is the aftermath of knocking the top of my mountain off.

I find it hard to relate to people like I used to, I feel like people are always going to think that I am weird if I talk to them and I generally feel really uncomfortable around anyone that I have not known for a long time. Social phobia induced by my own doing maybe I am not sure.

I will say I haven't been to see the doctor for my anxiety as I seem to be battling it on my own, slowly and surely and I want to try and deal with my things without medication, I'm not saying this is the right way so I think you should take my advice as one angle of many.

The way I have started to fight my social fear is exposure to what I am afraid off, I'm used to office jobs with my own desk and own space, I threw in the towel at a tech support job that I had and decided to work in a busy smoothie bar in my home town in a busy shopping center. This shop has to be about 10 foot long by 6 foot wide and 5 people work there on yesterday with prep equipment all around us so it is tiny. Saturdays is like a battle for me as I get the sweats, Hate people touching me, I talk utter gibberish to them sometimes that dont make much sense to me even. I don't even know if this is the right way of dealing with what I am afraid of but I think total exposure over time is my way of dealing with it. After a while you just stop thinking that people are talking about you looking at you and laughing at you in front of your face or behind your back, because, everyone gets bored of that eventually.

Do not take my advice word for word, I still have huge brain fog but I hope that its one way to look at something.

Keep your head up and keep on fighting! Life is great when you beat the last boss :)

Chris.

[MarkR]

Thank you for your input Chris.

I too find it hard to socialise with people that i haven't seen for a while. The depressing factor of my anxiety is the fact that my phoebia makes me house bound most days; before my phoebia developed i was energetic and was outside virtually all the time with friends; my phoebia of crowds/individuals/social situations stops me from being able to retain the outdoor aspect of my life. Even if i did manage to venture to a place which causes a lot of anxiety for me i'd only be able to do it by myself and wouldn't think about calling my friends and asking them to come along unless i intended to induce a full blown panic attack on myself.

I really hope you do manage to eradicate your anxiety. From what you've said i don't see what you could be doing better to remove your phoebias.

Good luck! :D

[ultirian]

No problem Mark :)

Have you been to any CBT courses?

I myself have been looking into this myself for the future, I will let you know how it goes as I am doing it. Like lots of people I fear the fear of having the feelings that I don't want again (The evil circle sucks huh? :) ) and I have been looking into this.

Do you feel that you would benefit from exposure or do you feel that the exposure would make it worse?

Keep your chin up mate :)

Chris.