Bourjois__x
16-05-12, 11:33
Hi Everyone,
I'm new to the site so please be gentle, as I'm sure you will be :)
I've been lurking on the site for around a week, specifically on this forum and thought I would join and get some advice.
I haven't been formally diagnosed as having Social Anxiety, but I definitely know that this is what I have after researching for quite a few months.
So I'll start from the beginning... Apologies for the length of this, I think it may be quite long!!!
I have always been a quiet girl with a select number of friends, even when I was younger I was always quiet. I know that nervousness/anxiety runs in my family as both my mum and nan suffer with it (not majorly though).
I had no problems whatsoever up until around 2 years ago when I started with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and then it tended to be one thing after another. I know that IBS and anxiety are related just didn't think it would end up being such a nuisance.
So around a year ago, I started to develop minor symptoms of anxiety when I went to meet up with friends - especially those I hadn't seen in a long time. Before the event happened my stomach would go all weird and then I'd get thoughts of "OMG! What are you doing" and then I'd have a little cry and would feel better. I never cancelled the night cause I always knew that if you start to cancel then you'd never go, so I always made sure I'd go. The weird thing is though that once I got there I'd be completely fine?! I'd think I've gone through all that minor stressing and for what - you're not going on death row or anything.
So after meeting up with friends I would be fine, a year passed and I felt OK, didn't have any symptoms and thought that it was just a phase and I'm now starting to feel like my normal self again (yay for me!)
Oh, how wrong was I when the day before New Years Eve 2011 I had a panic attack!!! Something I've never had before - it freaked me out, which obviously made me worse and then made my anxiety worse. I had booked to see Dirty Dancing on NYE with my mum and was so close to pulling out, I thought I can't - I HAVE to go, even if it kills me! Funnily enough, it didn't kill me and I had a blast!
I then had a week off work for leave and my anixety was just there. I think I went to see my GP 3 times that week - something which I hate doing as I don't like bombarding them with my problems. I was prescribed Propanolol... I'm never taking them again. They made me feel really weird and I didn't like the feeling they were giving me. I didn't realise I'd got so bad and was actually angry at myself that it had come to taking a Beta-Blocker! I thought to myself I've got to pull myself out of this and get on with life. What I didn't realise was that the contraceptive pill I was taking was causing my anxiety to be mroe heightened than usual as well as causing a lot more other problems.
I'm now on a different contraceptive pill and learning new techniques to help me move on from this horrible ordeal. I can still feel the anxiety there and haven't made any efforts to meet up with friends as yet, but I have a meal coming up in 2 weeks with some friends and I really want to go without getting that horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach!
At the moment I have been writing an achievments diary and putting everything that I have done that isn't usually in my daily life.
The weird thing about this anxiety is that I can go to work, I can speak to complete strangers on the phone/face-to-face, go for meals with work, eat in front of people, go shopping, spend time with my mum, go for walks etc.. But I just can't for the life of me remove this feeling when I'm wanting to meet up with friends, go on first dates, etc. Once I'm there I'm absolutely fine, it's the run up to the event that I start to doubt myself and think I can't go through with it...
I've also made another appointment to see my GP next to discuss adding progesterone cream/tablets to my contraceptive pill to see if that helps. Has anyone else done this?
Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like this!!?
Sorry again for the length of this post, I just had to get this out.
---------- Post added at 11:33 ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 ----------
Also, I notice that when I'm in a relationship with someone my anxiety flares up due to the stress of this and it really puts a dampner on enjoying something that is meant to be extremely exciting and fun.
It probably doesn't help that my ex harassed for 6 weeks after we broke up to the point that I had to call the police and have him warned for it! - We were only together for 3 weeks... So that really freaked me out!!
I'm a quiet friend with a select number of friends who are very close, I just feel that I'm pushing them away by saying no to invitations to go places. I have told them about my anxiety and they do understand and have said whenever you're ready but it seems to be taking it's time.
I'm new to the site so please be gentle, as I'm sure you will be :)
I've been lurking on the site for around a week, specifically on this forum and thought I would join and get some advice.
I haven't been formally diagnosed as having Social Anxiety, but I definitely know that this is what I have after researching for quite a few months.
So I'll start from the beginning... Apologies for the length of this, I think it may be quite long!!!
I have always been a quiet girl with a select number of friends, even when I was younger I was always quiet. I know that nervousness/anxiety runs in my family as both my mum and nan suffer with it (not majorly though).
I had no problems whatsoever up until around 2 years ago when I started with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and then it tended to be one thing after another. I know that IBS and anxiety are related just didn't think it would end up being such a nuisance.
So around a year ago, I started to develop minor symptoms of anxiety when I went to meet up with friends - especially those I hadn't seen in a long time. Before the event happened my stomach would go all weird and then I'd get thoughts of "OMG! What are you doing" and then I'd have a little cry and would feel better. I never cancelled the night cause I always knew that if you start to cancel then you'd never go, so I always made sure I'd go. The weird thing is though that once I got there I'd be completely fine?! I'd think I've gone through all that minor stressing and for what - you're not going on death row or anything.
So after meeting up with friends I would be fine, a year passed and I felt OK, didn't have any symptoms and thought that it was just a phase and I'm now starting to feel like my normal self again (yay for me!)
Oh, how wrong was I when the day before New Years Eve 2011 I had a panic attack!!! Something I've never had before - it freaked me out, which obviously made me worse and then made my anxiety worse. I had booked to see Dirty Dancing on NYE with my mum and was so close to pulling out, I thought I can't - I HAVE to go, even if it kills me! Funnily enough, it didn't kill me and I had a blast!
I then had a week off work for leave and my anixety was just there. I think I went to see my GP 3 times that week - something which I hate doing as I don't like bombarding them with my problems. I was prescribed Propanolol... I'm never taking them again. They made me feel really weird and I didn't like the feeling they were giving me. I didn't realise I'd got so bad and was actually angry at myself that it had come to taking a Beta-Blocker! I thought to myself I've got to pull myself out of this and get on with life. What I didn't realise was that the contraceptive pill I was taking was causing my anxiety to be mroe heightened than usual as well as causing a lot more other problems.
I'm now on a different contraceptive pill and learning new techniques to help me move on from this horrible ordeal. I can still feel the anxiety there and haven't made any efforts to meet up with friends as yet, but I have a meal coming up in 2 weeks with some friends and I really want to go without getting that horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach!
At the moment I have been writing an achievments diary and putting everything that I have done that isn't usually in my daily life.
The weird thing about this anxiety is that I can go to work, I can speak to complete strangers on the phone/face-to-face, go for meals with work, eat in front of people, go shopping, spend time with my mum, go for walks etc.. But I just can't for the life of me remove this feeling when I'm wanting to meet up with friends, go on first dates, etc. Once I'm there I'm absolutely fine, it's the run up to the event that I start to doubt myself and think I can't go through with it...
I've also made another appointment to see my GP next to discuss adding progesterone cream/tablets to my contraceptive pill to see if that helps. Has anyone else done this?
Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like this!!?
Sorry again for the length of this post, I just had to get this out.
---------- Post added at 11:33 ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 ----------
Also, I notice that when I'm in a relationship with someone my anxiety flares up due to the stress of this and it really puts a dampner on enjoying something that is meant to be extremely exciting and fun.
It probably doesn't help that my ex harassed for 6 weeks after we broke up to the point that I had to call the police and have him warned for it! - We were only together for 3 weeks... So that really freaked me out!!
I'm a quiet friend with a select number of friends who are very close, I just feel that I'm pushing them away by saying no to invitations to go places. I have told them about my anxiety and they do understand and have said whenever you're ready but it seems to be taking it's time.