Well my father always critisiced me and make me have a low self steem, also bullying and many broken trust.
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Well my father always critisiced me and make me have a low self steem, also bullying and many broken trust.
Screamed at by my dad, I remember how booming his voice was. I remember being punished a lot physically, and sent to my room to be alone a lot... My mom would do weird things that scared me... One time she put one of our cats in a clear plastic bag and held it up saying "isn't this fun?" while the cat was whining, it's face pressed up against the plastic. I was crying and asking her to please let the cat go.... Brother and sister would ridicule me, as I was the youngest and they thought I got the most attention... put me in duffle bags and drag me around, make fun of me when I was sick...
Guess who's happy to spend the holidays away from family this year! lol
The kids in my neighborhood would make fun of me too. Sometimes I was scared to walk down the street. In middle school and high school I got pushed around... and made fun of because I was poorer than the other kids. ignored by wealthy popular girls. so I would eat alone in a classroom at lunch. In middle school I started staying home out of fear of having to face the other students... I cried a lot after I came home, I didn't want them to see my weakness. In high school I had to have a teacher come to my house and teach me there because I was too scared to go to school.
I'm 22 now, and it's been getting better I think. I'm not living near any family, thank god. My friends get it. I'm in support groups and receiving psychiatric care. "It gets better"
TLDR: Parents, siblings, kids at school contributed to my social anxiety.
wow this thread is kinda scary. It really demonstrates how when you are a kid you start out happily expressing yourself freely and then peers, parents, and others shut you down and make you terrified of opening up. That creates a habit of avoidance that builds over time and is challenging to reverse.
Wow... as someone who really doesn't deal to heavily with SA, it's really heartbreaking to see how high the percentage for parents turned out. I know I have some form of SA (wondering what people think, self conscience thoughts) but I think most people deal with these things. I feel 100% guilt when I think of how I treated my parents. My mom was the 'genetic' one, she was in and out of the hospital with depression. My dad struggled terribly to try and understand us (mine was mostly depression/anxiety, GAD sort of thing).
I remember the kids in school being brutal. I had to have some 'thing' for my braces at about the worst phase of life in middle school. That really had a big effect on me. After 8th grade, I grew 6 1/2 inches and put on a good 50lbs... I didn't get picked on anymore.
My mental stuff just got much worse (really for no social/life reason at all, it was all chemical) at 17 and all the Drs entered the picture.
I got into a bad car accident when I was 19 (no one was hurt bad, but my dad's truck was totaled), and my dad had to use an old pickup to get back and forth to work. That really put a huge strain on him. About a year later, he was diagnosed with cancer and died three months later (he was 61). I always, to this day, blame myself for his cancer due to all the extra stress that accident and my declining mental health put on him.
So sad to hear about all the parents that were nothing like mine. Mine were a pure blessing.
I have come to learn that so much of this stuff is Fear Conditioning... we grow up in an environment where fear is the order of the day to control others and when we are young all we want to do is have people like us, get on with us and have fun. If, what should be the loving environment of family is broken and fear is the dominant emotion that this gets engrained into our psyche and we carry it for the rest of our lives.... unless...
I have discovered a really simple but powerful way of recalibrating this fear gauge. I have used it for a couple of years and it has changed me massively.
I am starting to share it with others. A local hypnotherpist is recommending it to her clients, as one of the tools to help.
If you'd like to take a look at it and give it a go then feel free to message me.
I was bullied at times as a kid and was physically and mentally abused by my mother as a young child at times. It may all have contributed to my health anxiety of today.
To be honest, I really don't know who or what started it. I've been an anxious person ever since I can remember. Even as a little kid it was awfully HARD for me to interact or make friends with other kids. But if there is someone I would blame, that would be my father. My "father" always treated me bad, he even tried to suffocate me when I was an infant, because apparently, my crying was bugging him too much. As I was growing up, he became an alcoholic, cheated and beat my mother almost every night, screaming and breaking everything in the room. And all this happened while I was in the next room shaking and crying uncontrollably. He never showed me any kind affection and wouldn't let my mother do it either. So yeah, I have the right to blame him.
School classmate.
Classmates and the opposite sex in general.
I'm not sure but I can imagine that it would be put down to other people in school. However, I've always been socially anxious since I was in nursery and perhaps even prior. It got worse when I was in secondary school though, so peers seems the most likely option.
M
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