If you feel that someone in your life was a big contributor to the onset of your social anxiety or shyness, let us know who you think was the main 'perpetrator'
-dan
(thanks to dlia from my old SA board for this idea)
My mother, definitly. And the psychological bullying I suffer at school.
I believe I have three main causes for my anxiety but the biggest one was my mother.
She tried to drown me in a lake literally, she treated me like an animal(forced me to us a bucket instead of the toilet inside, frequently picked on me,ect.), and she forced me to wear a private school uniform to public school(to name a few) which brings me to the second body of people who have helped cause my SA, school children. From late elementary school until after I was accepted to college I was abused a variety of ways. One guy in middle school was particularly bad. He would pick on me everyday on the bus by putting bag over my head, stealing my stuff, and taunting.
My sisters, the oldest and the third sister, liked to band together when they didn't get their way and do all sorts of things.
Classmates... I was teased at school all of my kindergarten and primary school.
Um hi I'm new. My parents, sister and classmates from primary and secondary school, I never really fit in anywhere and all of the attention at home was focused on my sister so i had to learn to cope on my own which made me withdraw from social interaction i guess :/
I don't think one can ever be certain. My siblings are fine but my Dad was bipolar. I strongly believe there is a biological component to anxiety no question. Some folks are just not susceptible to it, others can get it via traumatic experience(PTSD) and others will develop it as they get older and start to take on more in life. That's why I think it's so common in young adulthood for it to manifest itself. Also folks respond differently to therapy. It helps most all, some profoundly, others marginally.
Main one?
Just one?
Well, proably..... I can't even think of one - maybe I'll just blame everyone else for my problems. Or it could be me?
Father, Grandfather and when men get too close to me I freeze up and start to shiver and have trouble breathing because of stuff that's happened in the past. My Father is the opposite of me, he is racist and sexist and ageist and any other 'ist' you can think of. he makes fun of everything and never takes anything seriously. If i so much as wear mascara he won't let me hear the end of it and if i do so much as go out with a friend who is a guy he will automatically interogate me to the point of distraction. he judges everything i wear even though it is insanely conservative comapred to normal people my age and i am not allowed out with friends after dinner. even if it is just down the road which won't happen because none of my close friends live near me. I have learned to just shut him out when he goes on rants and pretend I am out shopping with friends or something to stop myself from talking back, which results in an enormous fight, which results in him winning and me crying all day and shaking, literally, which results at him yelling at me for crying because he thinks that any show of emotion is weird and unnecessary. I try to keep to my room when he gets like that. Sorry for the rant, bit of a word vomit, all just came out there lol
Mary x
Last edited by Persephone; 12-30-2011 at 02:45 AM.
I think to a large extent I blame myself, I've always tended to stick with solitary activities such as reading or crafting so I don't get all that much social interaction.
To an extent I also blame my mother and brother, mum often discouraged me (and still tries to) when it came to developing friendships and my brother would and still does inserts his own version of reality about things that have happened in the past or in social situations.
If I'm looking for somewhere to place blame I suppose it could fall on a lot of people...
- different men (and one woman) in my family who hurt me sexually. They led me to fear family gatherings, parties, etc. They also made me feel as if something was wrong with me, making me different from others.
- my parents, for not seeing the signs I was being abused, for not listening when i told them about my anxieties (even though I know they tried their best).
- my peers, for bullying me in high school because I really didn't fit it
and...
-myself. I can't only blame others. There are things I did and decisions I made myself that contribute to my SA and other problems.
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