New Social Anxiety Sufferer

[RyanStressed]

Hello, so let me first quickly explain my background up until this point. In elementary school and middle school I was the total popular kid, absolutely hilarious, tons of friends and absolutely no fear of social situations or awkwardness about me. Around my sophomore year in high school I started to become more introverted, in some ways obsessed with my appearance, and in other ways only opening up to certain people, other than that i was a pretty quiet person, but very seldom a funny guy to only certain people. Sometimes it would take people to push at me or try to open me up in a social situation for me to put on a smile and begin talking or getting involved in the conversation. I had almost no friends after my junior year in high school because i always kept to myself, didn't talk unless spoken to or on the rare occasion that i just felt good on that particular day i would sometimes open up to people but mostly not at all. I never had trouble with eye contact at all in high school. Then college began. The first few months were great, made lot of friends, then about halfway through the year something changed. I started distancing myself from everyone, isolating myself in my dorm room, almost fearing social situations like a knock on the door from a friend or someone coming to my room to beg me to come out. I was always coming up with excuses and avoiding anything with total bs. I started to have real difficulty with eye contact, to the point where all my friends could obviously notice. Anyway my first college year ended with things still going like this and now it is the summer and im still like this completely. Thinking back i can remember myself slowly getting more and more like this since my soph year in high school but never this bad. This summer I have been seeing a psychologist after making my parents aware of these feelings and he thinks i have social anxiety and mild depression. I have talked to him for the last couple months or so. Soon I am going to be put on Paxil - i think..he mentioned how it could help me and that i would need a med evaluation which is coming up next week. However, I never mentioned to him the thoughts i always have of over analyzing things, living in my own mind rather than outside of it, and in social situations my brain almost acts faster than my thoughts - for example, if im working ill take a package of staples off the desk and try to open them for a long time ripping and tearing at the package when the top is already open...or ill go to hang up a sheet on the wall after doing it all day and ill skip like five steps and ill go to put the sheet up without it being ironed, or stapled, or pressed, and then like 2 minutes later ill think to myself..wait a minute i never ironed or stamped or pressed that and my coworkers will sometimes say, "Yeah haha i was like what are you doing with that?" And when i think after the fact about some of the things im like, wow that makes me look like an absolute dumbass, but its only in social situations and its like i try to do things without thinking about it first...i never mentioned this to the doc and im wondering if social anxiety like my doc thinks could explain these actions and thoughts also?

Thanks guys for helping me out here

[hypnotherapylondonclinic]

What are you thinking/feeling when you are ripping the staple box open/or missing steps?

[Marlow]

Sounds alot like me,

I was very outgoing and fun until my sophomore year as well, I think I felt more mature then everyone until my sophomore year. I had the same problems in college my first year, I found friends that were alot like me and shared alot of the same values. that has helped me the most. I was really depressed and anxious my fall semester freshman year, I felt like noone was like me but I found people who were and even though I havent told them of my problem they are very understanding people.

Try to find people who you can relate to even if you dont want to tell them what your going through, you can find them, they're every where

Good Luck,
Marlow