Avoiding people

[wish]

I regularly avoid seeing or talking to people that I know. It's not even only offline - it's with people I've met on the internet as well. If they send me a message, when I'm in one of my "avoiding" moods, I avoid replying for days, making it harder and harder.

I'm even doing it at the moment. I'm avoiding everything and everyone. I sometimes convice myself that I'm just not suited for social contact; that I'm better off alone. No worries of alienating people anymore. However, I just end up feeling more depressed and less able to make that step of contacting people again. I feel like I'm rotting away. I see myself go through regular phases of self-sabotaging, self-imposed isolation every now and then, but I feel helpless to stop it. I hate what it's doing to my life, but I just don't feel that I can face going out or anything at the moment. Some days, I'm the opposite, so it's confusing.
I need help :weep:

[suzy-sue]

I used to do this when I was depressed,I had never had social anxiety in my life and was always confident and out going.You need to break the habit of doing this as it will only continue to leave you feeling worse and isolated,then subsequently more anxious and depressed.I would recommend you speak to your Dr about this in detail and ask if he could offer you some CBT THERAPY.this will help with the low self esteem and social anxiety..Take care luv SUEX

[sb001f8994]

Hi wish,
Recently I was avoiding visits from my parents and I dont know why. Im agoraphobic and I think because I dont see many people I got into a bad rut and sort of hid myself away even more. I knew I was doing this and felt dreadfully guilty about it especially when my parents would leave and I know I had made them feel very unwelcome. I dont know how I got passed it but I did, I now welcome them with open arms and look forward to their visits. Maybe I was feeling depressed at the time but Im glad Im over it. I do however still get nervous seeing people I hardly know and last night we had a very unexpected visitor which I enjoyed as I didnt have to worry about it before hand!
Have you seen your gp or had any counsilling? I'm not an expert by any means but living the way you are is going to make you more and more depressed, we are social animals, we need company.
I hope you can work things out.
Take care,
Carol x

[bcr]

Hi Wish,

I recognise that. My counsellor asked me whether moving to Durham was making it easier for me to cut off from people.

No one that meets me would ever imagine that I would avoid talking to, emailing or seeing people. I appear very socially confident and able to network and mingle. I don't mind being centre of attention (though quite happy to be not as well). I will be the one that organises people, gathers them together and gets people to do stuff.

However there are times when communicating with other people is hard work and difficult. Days where I just want to be alone, and if I absolutely HAVE to be sociable I find it almost painful.

After discussing with my counsellor I decided one thing I had to do was answer the phone. For me I am great at "missing" calls when I can't face talking to anyone. I know that it doesn't do me any good even if it seems to be the easiest thing at the time.

I hope you find a way to make it a bit easier for yourself x x x

[wish]

Thank you for the great advice everyone. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in a way.

I don't feel that I can talk to anyone about these problems - not my friends or family. They wouldn't understand. Maybe I'm just slightly ashamed of my inadequacy as well. I'm scared of people laughing at me. I tend to just keep it to myself and try to push through it.

From tomorrow, I'm digging myself out of this self imposed rut. I'll do it bit by bit: finally answering my emails and calls etc. I just need to get in contact with people again.

I'm sort of forcing myself to confront my social fears by agreeing to go to a music festival (Sonisphere) with my friend in August. Ahhhh! I've been stressing about this for so long but I'm determined to have a good time. I hate that I've been held back from doing things in the past because of my anxiety (not to mention my parents practically forbidding me from leaving the house which didn't help at all), so now I'm trying to make up for lost time. Wish me luck everyone!