View Full Version : I'm fed up with people laughing at me...
As well as the chronic startle response and hyper-vigilance, I get claustraphobia....
The bus to work was crowded this morning again, and some people were crowding me, even though they were standing and I was sitting...I asked them to stand back...because I was feeling trapped...and they did....although I was still very panicky...and as they moved away they were laughing at me...I couldn't tell what they were saying, because they weren't speaking English....but it wasn't nice, I could tell.....
I know I'm the one with the problem, not them..and they don't have a right, as such, to move even if I ask them and explain why...but...this gets me down...its hard enough for me to travel on crowded public transport, without this....
I suppose I have several choices....
1. Carry on as I am....and risk ridicule and laughter...
2. Become completely agoraphobic and not travel on public transport at all...hard because I have to to get to work..(thankfully my work moves to within walking distance from home in a couple of month's time...)
3. Stick with things..and somehow cope....I have no idea how to do this...I have to live with my symptoms while they still are present...they won't just go away by thinking about them...
4. Be very assertive with my GP, and my pdoc when I see him next, and tell him I need a strong anti-anxiety to help me when things are difficult....
5. Work hard in therapy around the root causes and ways of coping.....
Help...
What do you think?
Hello Rosepetal!
B******s! to those people. They were crowding your space, you have every right to tell them to move back! For all they know, you could have found them smelly or something - don't take peoples' bad attitudes to heart. its their problem not yours. If someone asked me to move back a little, I'd be quite happy to, if they were polite. You are doing fantastically well, alot of anxiety sufferers wouldn't even contemplate going on crowded public transport. Keep on using it, each time is a step in the right direction. Sometimes you might feel you are making no progress but you are. Be happy with every accomplishment you make, confidence will come in time.
All the best!
Fradycat xx
<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">You are doing fantastically well, alot of anxiety sufferers wouldn't even contemplate going on crowded public transport</td id="quote"></tr id="quote"></table id="quote">
Not only that, but you spoke up and asked them to move because you were feeling uncomfortable. That's something I could never do, for fear of "exposing" myself and my fears to strangers, so it took guts for you to do that in my humble opinion! Well done you! :)
Leah xx
--- Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
Hi Rosepetal
I agree you did very well to cope today and you are doing well to face your fear in this way each time you use public transport.
Those people were ignorant and deserve to be ignored. You just concentrate on what you are doing and working towards achieving. I think you know deep down that avoidance won't help and will reinforce the fear that situations like this are dangerous and therefore to be avoided.
You are stronger than that and can keep challenging these fears. Give yourself a big pat on the back for today!
Karen
Happiness is not a state to arrive at but a manner of travelling.
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough ~ Christine Cagney, Cagney & Lacey
When I'm on a bus looking out of the widow help me to relax in stead of looking at the people.
What is it about the people that makes you so anxious for me it that I get thought's of what the people on the bus might be doing wrong or why thay look the way thay look I can handle the idea that I know nothing about them yet my head seems to making up there life story in sec's and what my head say;s about them dose not make me feel good at all it gose against everything I beleaive in personally. I'm afraid to speack in case I just blurt out one of these bad thought directly to the person it's about.
If you fear is just anxiety related and not OCD related then facing the fear with logic will work if you just constant resaying the same positive message to your over and over. IF your fear's are OCD fear like legal issues like I have than logic will often make the fear worse and the only real way to overcome the fear is to hit where it hurt's by admitting in funny way that it going to really happen or it's so true what eva your hearing in your head. OCD thought or image's are best faced with acceptance and anxiety thinking is best faced with repetative positive thinking like a tape recording .
If you finding you can over come you negative thinking and or your really trying to over come it and you have not been diagnoised OCD it might be worth looking into just incase as OCD come's in many form's and can be hard to diagnoise as people seem to beleaive that OCD symptom's are extreamly obvious and thay are not alway obvious at all. I have recently read that more than half of OCD people dont know thay are suffering from OCD as it can be silent disorder. People can have what is called Pure O OCD and it's basicly just mainly obsessive thinking.
I dont know what meant by cronic startle responce but it sure sounds simular to what I was dealing with I was reacting defensively before I even know what I meant to be reacting to. The reaction was instant as the time of the thought of image that made me scared. I was so scared that I was going cause my partner to have an accident or something he couldn't understand why I reacting to what to him seem like nothing and once I realised the image was in my head I felt so stupid and couldn't understand why I did it.
I'm now luvox(fluvoxamine melate) 100mg for unwanted repeated thought's that the brain sends out which makes hard to regain control over your thought's behaviour's loike in OCD but it's not just used for OCD people it's also used for anxiety
thank you everyone...
with me, its PTSD (although I'm not officially diagnosed with it... [Sigh...])
I was bullied all through junior and secondary school...the bullies chased me, cornered me, took and hid my things...laughed at me..called me names, threw things at me (including a wooden chair once..although it missed...)flicked ink all over my blouse, thumped a chalky chalk board rubber all over my back, all over my blazer.....
which is one of the reasons why I'm so jumpy and jittery when around a lot of people..
the other reason is my innate acute sensitivity arising from my traumatic permature birth and early isolation and lack of warm human contact...
the other is living in a claustraphobic family atmosphere..small house, paranoid and unstable father, domestic violence and threats to send me away to a home for bad children...to put me in the shed for the night..he once strapped me to my bed....
so, its basic raw flight-fight-fright response [Sigh...]
I guess it helped to list the reasons...and my GP thinks I'm doing alright...although I told her this morning how the claustraphobia and jitteriness is still a real problem for me and always has been...
I see my pdoc again in a month...I hope he gets the picture and takes me seriously.... [Sigh...]:(
Thankfully therapy starts back on Monday...
hi rosepetal,
it sounded like you coped with this situation really well. maybe you just need some more confidence in 'its ok to be you' rather than more drugs and therapy.
public transport in london aint easy. i do struggle a bit with this. mainly with people leaning on me, when there is space for them not to or things floating near my head, newspapers, bags and alike. i always say something or just push the object away, i dont really see it is my problem, im just creating some common respect which some idiot decided not to give me. i haven't got any problems with the over crowded rush hours in general, altho given the choice i'd avoid it.
anyway practical solutions.
change how you make the journey, or the times, to a less crowded option, if you're able.
sit upstairs on the bus, where no one will be standing over you.
sit on the inside seat only.
stand up yourself in the most open space available.
get a bike, or a cab.
like you said, its only for a few more months. and nobody wants ridicule and laughter aimed at them, the more you believe in you, the less you'll believe in them.
you take care .. andrew
thanks Andrew...its reassuring I'm not the only one who has these kinds of things as issues...
ok to be me...is still quite an alien concept....
I'm thinking on planning to leave home earlier and walk to the right tube line and get the tube..its away from central, so ought to be ok...
the bus I get is a single decker usually... and I do usually get an inside seat, and even a single seat....which is usually ok....but not yesterday...I'm physically small and slight, so don't look like I need much room.....except that I do...I need room to breathe and live and not be something insignificant that people can just push around...over and over again...
hi rosepetal,
i change my journey route to work every now and again, it works.
a lot of people aren't as aware of whats around them ... i try not to take it too personally that someone has deliberately done something to me, most people just dont seem to care.
another suggestion, maybe you could try something like self-defence, it might really help your situation.
im sure you'll find 'ok to be me' soon enough. sounds like you've worked out whats going on and where it came from. so you only have to incorporate what you've done with that info into rosepetal today. or maybe you have, but just need to show it to more people to believe it.
you take care .. andrew
WOW 10/10 for you for being brave and having the courage to go on a bus in the first place, not sure I could do it! I think you handled the situation really well and stuff pathetic people like those you encountered, I'm a great believer in what goes around comes around, their time will come have no fear:D
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