Hi, new to this board and GAD etc..

[rct7]

Hi, I am a 26-year old male who is beginning to understand that he has social anxiety. I have been diagnosed with ADHD my entire life and I have held onto it as an adult. The ADD medication made my anxiety worse, except when I tried straterra, which made my penis stop working properly, so I stopped that. Somewhere in my high-school years I became socially anxious. I never had trouble making friends, but was not living up to my potential. When I'd play sports, eventhough I was a better athlete and more skilled then most of the people I was playing against, I would get horrible performance anxiety when I would get the ball in basketball or come up to the plate in baseball. When I would have to give a speech in class or introduce myself I would turn beat red and begin sweating profusely. I never really understood this and just kinda avoided situations where that would happen. This continued into college and screwed up my college years and now is messing up my life to the point where I need to take action. I have trouble in job interviews, am having trouble meeting new friends and trouble picking up girls. It's like my mind just freezes when these situations come up. I can recite and practice and psyche myself up for hours yet when it comes time to execute I am paralyzed with fear. I will sweat through shirts within 5 minutes and turn really red. I often go out and get extremely drunk to medicate this anxiety I get, but then I'm just a babbling retard. I have no problem making eye-contact or carrying on a decent conversation, but when it comes down to influencing people or aproaching new, interesting women or someone of influence this terrible anxiety creeps up. It also prevents me from sleeping, I'd be up for entire nights before a sales presentation the next afternoon or even a date with a new woman the next night or a party in the coming weekend. It prevents me from calling people when I need to (ran my financial business into the ground due to phone anxiety) I am a very proud person with a high self-esteem and it has been very hard for me to sit down and admit to myself that I have some type of social impediment. I do not want SSRI medication I do not have depression problems... I am thinking of taking benzos like klonopin as needed, for I do not have an addictive personality. I heard that mixing klonopin with an ADD stimulant works for some. Any thoughts or experience for anyone like me?

[V for Victor]

Hi,

I'm sorry that nobody has gotten around to responding to your post!


It is good that you're coming to terms with anxiety. I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but getting drunk isn't going to help. The alchohol will not provide you a longterm solution to conquering your problems, it just temporarily removes the symptoms.

That being said, that's not the goal with medication, either. You don't want to just hide the symptoms. The goal is to get the symptoms out of the way, so you can deal with the root of the problem rationally and intelligently.

In a situation like yours where you've been on other medications, and if you are currently taking them for other reasons, you should just make an appointment with a doctor to discuss your problems and feelings, and see what plan will work best for you. In the meantime, it's always best to study up on your anxiety. Keep posting in the forums, and look around on the net for more info on what you're feeling, and what solutions there may be out there.

It does sound like anxiety is a real problem for you, but you also sound like a very motivated, determined person. Get your anxiety under control, and you'll go far!