Sometimes I don't really notice how social anxiety affects my life untill I think of all people and places/w the people I avoid. Or how difficult it can be to talk to something I don't know well. But when I think about it, that stuff happens several times a day. I'm tired of the anxiety, stress, fear and how it's keeping me back from doing things I want too.

So I had my first appointment with a psychologist and will be seeing her weekly for a while. I started Lexapro today too, so we'll see how it goes. I'm not hoping for a miracle, but a change would be nice..

Some CBT or even DBT may help with the issues of SA.

Do you have PTSD? People with that are also often socially avoidant.

I don't know what type of therapy she uses, I should find out. I've heard that CBT is especially effective for treating social anxiety. What is DBT?

No, I don't have PTSD. I can think of factors in my life that prolly contribuated to it though. Like being shy as a kid, getting picked on, etc. Plus there's always that add factor. It can be hard to pay attention, especially in a big group of people where so much stuff is going on.

Wow I just started the Lexapro Tuesday, but I felt it working the first day o_o.

It's helped my anxiety more than anything, I just feel relaxed. A little tired though, but i haven't gotten much sleep due to school so I'm not sure if they're related. I'm wondering if the relaxation is just a side effect or something, like how some meds can make you feel tired. Though when i took stratter it whiped me out, but not in a good way.

My heart palpations are gone too, as is my jumpiness. My concerta gave me pretty bad anxiety, but not with this stuff. It's interesting, I wonder if i need to lower my dose if i'm feeling the effects so soon. I'm on 20mg which seemed a high starting dosage, but my doctor upped it a little because I've been depressed lately. I think i'm gonna cut the pills in half and see what kinds of effects I get from that.

I've also been a bit more comfertable talking to people. Maybe that's because of the reduced anxiety, i'm not sure.

Now that i've calmed down a lot too, seeing the therapist seems less important. I want to learn coping skills though, because I won't be on medicine for the rest of my life neccisarily. So i'm going to see it through for a while yet. Besides even though i'm feeling better, it's not like i'm fixed. I still have a long way to go, but I feel a lot more optimistic now :)

ok...
So yesterday since yesterday i've been feeling drowsy, and I was unable to get up to go to school this morning.
I've always been having muscle twitches and I just feel spacy.

I checked my dosage and I realized my doctor started me off the highest dose of Lexapro, 20 mg

So i'm going to cut it down to 10 or even 5 and take it at night only. Man, doctors are so irresponsiable sometimes it seems -_-

Yup. Getting bullied would definitely contribute to social anxiety problems.

Anxiety CAN be caused by medical conditions such as adrenal problems, or MVP (heart) problems.

However, most anxiety is probably conditioned. Stimulus response (S-R) conditioning.

The basis behind our Fear conditioning can be forgotten too. (amnesia)

We don't remember (verbally) every single thing that ever happened to use when we are young right back to infancy.

re: not remembering the conditioning stimuli
For example, if we were barked at by a scary dog, or were bullied or saw/heard social distress in our caregivers [afraid or upset faces can trigger anxiety in a child too part of why family violence is so damaging], etc.

We just know that we have anxiety (which has been generalized to other settings/triggers) and that it probably was conditioned by a prior fear response.

Anxiety levels (state/trait) can be measured in babies, BTW. Dr. Jerome Kagan at Harvard did that research. Scare them with a 'clap' behind them, and some will cry, some will remain calm.

Two things happen in anxiety: (a) the person is sensitized (conditioned) to have an anxiety reaction and (b) the person is overgeneralizing their stimuli (triggers). For example, a backfiring car BANG will seem like a "gunshot".

All that old emotional content (the mud puddle) gets its contents stirred up when these old triggers get activated, too. (Emotional Associations; --> racing thoughts; physical activation (sweating; heart racing; sweats; paralysis feelings; choking throat; breathing/chest tightness)

We get sort of "transported back there" again. (Pat Ogden calls it "bottom up hijacking".) We get emotionally kidnapped back into a previous terrifying time w/o realizing why/what is happening. The stress is in the bodily symptoms [mentioned above], idea.

Social Anxiety seems to be a very common ADD thing. I also had SA, but slowly overcame it by forcing myself into social situations. It was crap at start cause I had no idea what I was doing and I had absolutely no backing from anyone. But somehow at the tender age of about 16 I knew I had problems and had to overcome them or it will cause me to drag behind in life. I am glad I did what I did, but its no fun doing it at the time.
Maybe Meds would be a easier solution, I just wonder what would happen if you went back into social situations that you are comfortable with when you are on meds and return to those social situations withouth the backing of meds?
Are meds a permenent fix after a while?
Im a bit anti med, but see how it can be neccesary. I personally feel that there should be a program to get you confident in any situation eventually without the meds.

Sorry I am asking more questions than really answering your questions, but I think these questions are worth thinking about.

I hope you all the best of luck.

I've been putting off taking this medication for over a month now for various reasons. I'm curious to see how it effects you and how you like it, so to speak. Please post your results here or message me privately. I have major anxiety and have suffered from SA for years now. Like you, I've BEEN ready to move past this crap. I have good days and bad days. In a lot of ways, I have overcome certain aspects but, other times I'm just a wreck.

Again, let us know how it works for you.

D

Well dealing with this stuff is still relatively new to me (diagnosed 2 months ago ADD-I and SA). But for what it's worth - and in the spirit of the thread title, as I too am ready - here are my thoughts and experiences.

Everyone's causes of SA are different, and I'm still struggling to understand mine. Some is obvious, but new realizations keep popping up and I think there's still a lot that's buried, which is one of the things that makes this so hard to deal with, because I've found that being able to consciously counter the root of negative thoughts helps a lot. So even though it can be really hard to determine and accept the causes, and possibly harder to discuss it with your therapist or whoever, I think finding the strength to do so can go a long way.

I found it really interesting when I started medication for ADD (concerta, ritalin as of today), it helped me to see what parts of the anxiety were caused by ADD and what wasn't. For example, one thing that happens to me is getting anxious in class even thinking about speaking up and contributing, let alone doing so. With the meds I still get the initial pounding heart etc., but then instead of being anxious about people noticing that I'm anxious (secondary anxiety?), my mind stays focussed on the discussion.

Basically instead of my mind operating on half a dozen thin streams of thought at once, and five of those shifting to anxious thoughts when I want to say something, I'm running one or two solid streams of consciousness that can withstand the anxiety trying to divert them. This has made somewhat of a difference in other situations too, like just being in public places, where the meds reduce the 'chatter' in my head which in these instances would be all anxious thoughts. Anyway, being able to follow the discussion and formulate cogent comments definitely helps diminish some of the initial anxiety, but even with part of the cause gone, I'm still left with the conditioned anxiety to struggle with.

Then there are situations where the meds don't seem to make too much of a difference. Like in social situations, bars or whatever - I might be a bit more able to carry a conversation and not distracted by everything going on, but the anxiety prevents me from initiating it or is strong enough to override any gains during. It also makes me a bit less spontaneous and funny, which causes new anxiety.

In terms of meds for SA my understanding is that it's not caused by a neurological deficit like ADD, that it's more conditioning. So meds may provide short term relief but not a longer term solution. Also, I would be concerned that when you chose to stop them it would affect your efforts to change your thought patterns, because it would presumably set you back and you wouldn't be as far along as it seemed on them. But by all means if it helps or gets you on the right track, I'm not judging, those are just my thoughts.

The other big thing for me that has begun to make a difference is understanding the thought processes that were almost subconscious that are a big part of my SA. Things like assuming other people were paying more attention to me than they were, others judging certain characteristics negatively when they aren't, only noticing and remembering negative things about myself and positive things about others, not forgiving myself for occasionally making mistakes, etc. I guess realizing this wasn't even close to half the battle because recognizing those thoughts in real time and successfully countering them when you're wrapped up in the emotion of the moment can be really difficult or impossible. But I think the more you explore this for yourself and figure out what things you do that undermine your self-image and contribute to anxiety, the easier it will become over time to talk yourself through them to reduce the intensity and length of the anxiety, and hopefully someday get it to a minimal level or eliminate it.

I see dealing with SA in this way as similar to going to the gym. You don't get ripped overnight - you have to be consistent and push yourself just beyond your comfort zone each time, not let slow progress or setbacks stop you from going, and while supplements may speed up your progress a bit it's pushing hard on the basic exercises every day with some isolation exercises later on to catch up parts that are lagging that will allow you to create the body you want. Oh, and it will probably take months or years to see significant progress. If this sounds like I'm trying to trivialize SA, I'm not because I know how difficult it is to deal with, but I do think that it's one of those things like going to the gym that while it may be very difficult to persevere, it is relatively straightforward.

I don't think I've said anything new or groundbreaking here, but hopefully some part of my ramblings helped:).

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Sorry I'm months replying.

I appreciate anyone's experiences. I think it helps to put one's own into perspective at times.

I've had some success, although I haven't finished it, with Dr. Thomas A. Richards Social Anxiety tape series over at the Social Anxiety Institute. Basically he takes a cognitive approach to SAD therapy, which replaced negative thoughts with new, positive ones. Takes a lot of time and persistence, but studies have shown this type of therapy to be very beneficial in many issues.

My SAD is very strange. It comes and goes at times. I always think of it like I think of playing pool. If I think about it much at all, I generally screw up. But if I just do it, I'm usually fine. I think my mind on ADHD causes me to worry more and over-analyze things. At times I realize I'm doing well and then the thinking begins again.

But the cognitive therapy deals with replacing the automatic negative thoughts.

D

PS. I hope I'm not breaking any rules by endorsing this organization and its products.