Welcome to the Anxiety Forum - A Home for Those with Anxiety, Fear, or Panic Attacks.

View Poll Results: Who played a big part in the development of your SA?

Voters
231. You may not vote on this poll
  • parent(s)

    75 32.47%
  • other family member(s)

    18 7.79%
  • peers (friends, classmates, coworkers, etc)

    97 41.99%
  • opposite sex (in general)

    21 9.09%
  • same sex (in general)

    3 1.30%
  • other(s)

    17 7.36%
Page 2 of 13 FirstFirst 123412 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 121
  1. #11
    It seems that asshole kids have ruined our lives and made me very bitter.

  2. #12
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    My Chair, My Living Room, My Flat, My Street, Louth, Lincolnshire, England, UK, Planet Earth.
    Posts
    411
    Although I think I've always been an anxious person, I think my issues began to get worst with the introduction of my step father. A man of great expections and greater temper, all I wanted to do was to please the man to be treated as a son. Unfortunatly he saw me as some kind of a threat and would chastise me for anything he could think of this left me a very confused nervous teenager without a father figure to turn to. Anyhow I guess thats where the SP started but who knows I've only been truly certain of my condition for a month or so but I have had panic attacks since I was about 8.

    Denile is not just a river in Egypt.

    Duncan
    In a mad world only the mad are sane

    Akira Kurosawa

  3. #13
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
    Posts
    7
    Believe or not, the death of my mother did two things.

    - It gave me panic attacks and anxiety (mostly fear of death)

    - It forced me to wake up and do things on my own.

    Of course, today when I look back at the last 15 years since she died I always tell myself I should have done this, not that, etc. But all in all it's a strange circle. Her death is the reason I'm here but also why I'm less shy in public. She was like a lighthouse for me. When she died, the fog just took over and I had to rely on my own compass so I wouldn't hit the shore so to speak. Very ironic how life is...

  4. #14
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Nova Scotia
    Posts
    99
    It's so sad how some people here have been damaged by others. I've promised myself that if I ever have children, I will do my best to be a positive force in their lives and raise them to be compassionate and empathic.

    This is an interesting question for me because I don't think any people contributed to me developing social anxiety and agoraphobia. I was lucky.

    Despite being a natural worrier from the time I was a little girl, I was extremely self-confident and outgoing. I never worried about what other people thought of me. Academics were easy for me and so was making friends. I was popular. I remember a teacher in high school singing "Free Bird" to me whenever I passed him in the hallway because I was such a free spirit and didn't seem to have a care in the world (even though I worried a lot, I didn't let it show). I never worried about social situations. I worried about nuclear war and disease and my family -- stuff like that.

    My parents were very supportive and my mum praised me and my siblings constantly. We received very little criticism. When we were criticized or reprimanded, it was constructive and appropriate. I have wonderful parents. My mum had some psychiatric problems (PTSD and paranoia) when I was a teenager. My dad went away on a ship for 6 weeks at a time and my sister was already grown up and moved out of the house, so I was left to be the "mother" in our home most of the time. I can remember wanting to keep my mother's condition a secret from my friends, but it wasn't because of how it would reflect upon me. I felt like I needed to protect her because I knew how sensitive she was.

    I was never a self-conscious person. I started performing (voice and piano) on stage in front of large crowds of people when I was 6 years old and never suffered from stage fright. I was always kind of oblivious (and still am) about what other people think of me. It's not really on my radar. I have no fear of public speaking. I don't really care what others think of me. I guess I'm too self-centred for that. :roll: The only "social" anxiety I ever had was a fear of throwing up in front of other people. I don't know where that came from -- maybe from being carsick so much during family vacations as a child -- but it didn't become a major phobia until 2000.

    So, how did I end up sitting in my flat for over 3 years, too agoraphobic to step outside? I put it down to Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo -- a condition I developed in March of 2000 (on my 30th birthday). It turned my world upside down. I was constantly dizzy and the room would spin when I turned my head. The spinning made me very nauseous and I threw up a lot. My balance was severely affected and I fell down frequently. I had to hold onto walls to keep myself upright -- but the walls were often moving. I no longer felt safe in the world. I was throwing up so often, I was afraid I would throw up on a client in a meeting -- not a good way to make an impression. I would be walking along the street and suddenly the sidewalk would zoom up to hit me in the face. It got worse and worse. Eventually, my vision was so blurred, I couldn't work. I was a graphic designer and couldn't focus on a computer screen any more. It was dangerous for me to go anywhere. I couldn't even shower. If I tipped my head back, the bathroom would spin, so I had to get my sister to wash my hair for me so I wouldn't get seriously hurt. The reality I had trusted -- up is up and down is down -- was turned sideways, upside down and spun around and around. I also became extremely frustrated and anxious about the fact that I didn't have a diagnosis for a number of years. I had lost my job, my social life, my savings were gone and I was reduced to living on social assistance. It was upsetting and I felt hopeless and desperate. When I finally got a diagnosis, I fell into the 20% of patients who don't respond to treatment. I just had to wait for it to get better on its own.

    After the physical symptoms of BPPV lessened, I was left with anxiety and fear. My safety zone had become so small and the world didn't feel safe or familiar anymore. I suffered from sensory overload. I couldn't stand movement, bright lights, lots of people, noise, etc. Those things would make me panic. I wanted to be alone in my flat. I believe BPPV and the way it limited my movement conditioned my mind and made me agoraphobic. I had never experienced a panic attack before my inner ear got damaged.

    My agoraphobia is gone now and my panic attacks are much less frequent. I feel like I have gotten my life back. I am still nagged by worries of having a relapse of BPPV symptoms, though. It's one of my biggest fears.
    “Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi //// "I won't go back to living in a cage." ~ Marty Casey

  5. #15
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    New York
    Posts
    16
    It's hard to pin down how it all started. For as long as I can remember I've had intense fear, oversenitivity and paranoid fears about how others were looking at or judging me. This got worse I grew older.

    I voted for the parents option, though I don't really blame them that much. I feel that to some degree my sensitive disposion and relative immaturity to my peers led me to have great social anxiety from a young age. My parents made it worse simply by trying to protect me, over protect that is. I still can't use a telephone, I've grown so accustomed to them calling places for me that it feels terrifying when I do it now. I avoid anything axiety provoking when I can. I'm twenty years old, I'm reaching a cross roads at which I can't rely on them and now I have to jump in at the deep end of the pool.

    I have a deep fear of the unknown and it's the engine of my anxiety, I do not know who's responsible for this and that makes it quite difficult to find some kind of guilty party. I can really only blame myself now.

  6. #16
    I think alot of things triggered my Social Anxiety. But most of all, I aim for the fact that my parents took me out of public schools and started homeschooling me. I never really went anywhere and never saw anyone. My friends stopped talking to me and all I really ever did was sit in my room and hide out playing video games. I think I had too much time to think to myself. I thought myself retarded pretty much.

    I think that everyone has some sort of anxiety in them, but we just have it worse then others where it pretty much takes over our entire lifes, where as other people have the more unsure/shy/anxiety effect.

  7. #17
    Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    34
    All the evil kids I went to school with - starting with the one who stomped my sand castle in kindergarten.

  8. #18
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    18

    I chose oppostie sex.

    Why, because they can be so frustrating and condemning at times. It takes all my techniques to block it out of my mind when I am ridiculed or humiliated just for their own laughs.
    Anxiety Information is a must
    To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

  9. #19
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    2
    Dido school kids big time

  10. #20
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Sheffield
    Posts
    2
    My sisters partner contributed to mine when he announced in front of a room full of people that i have a lisp and can't talk properly. Now, i have a big phobia of talking to people. I started uni in september and it has been an absolute nightmare of panic attacks and feeling anxirty. It's taking over my life

 

 

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •