My sincere apologies in advance if this is the wrong area in which to be posting this suggestion. I have been a regular visitor to your site, but have lacked the confidence to contribute. Your site has been a place of great solace to me at various times over the years, and I apologise for not taking the plunge and contributing. I've had severe anxiety issues for many years, and I don't know much about much, but I know a lot about fear.
The last twelve months have been very tumultuous for me, but a lot of questions have been answered, and I wondered if, at some point in the future there might be room for a sub-forum dedicated to the Cluster C type of Personality Disorders (Anxious), which are made up of Dependent Personality Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (which is entirely distinct from OCD).
I have had problems with social functioning for all of my life. I was severely neglected before I was adopted, and was a withdrawn child who had problems mixing at school through extreme shyness and low-level anxiety. I came out as gay and left home at a young age, and 14 years ago had a small breakdown which seemed to worsen my shyness and anxiety, and I rapidly developed a severe panic disorder and GAD, and withdrew socially. Two years later in 2000, I had serious nervous breakdown and was sectioned under the mental health act.
The following ten years saw me trialled on roughly 15-20 different anti-depressants, anxiolytics and antipsychotics and the only medications that helped to any degree were very high doses of Promazine, Mirtazapine and Benzodiazpines. Three separate and completed courses of CBT were completely ineffective.
Two years ago I moved house to a new city a long way away to live with a new partner I had found on a dating site. The move was stressful and my mental health deteriorated to the point that in in October I had another mental breakdown. Thankfully, the Crisis Resolution Team here were very fast to respond and a psychiatrist and social worker were assigned to me immediately (from moving here I had not been assigned a new psychiatrist, which was partly my fault as I had not requested one).
My new psychiatrist, once aware of how long the situation had been going on, was determined, and said as much, that she would get to the bottom of what was going on, as she was unhappy that I been stuck on benzodiazepines for ten years and basically just been given up as a lost cause. She is tapering my benzodiazepines, switched me to Quetiapine, and switch my Mirtazapine to Trazadone, once things are a bit more settled. Also, I was assigned a psychologist who visited me, and went through a gigantic raft of tests and questionaires, including two dealing with Personality Disorders - one of which was the standard PDQ-4+. I was also offered long term psychotherapy - which starts on the 1st February. On the 6th of January, the Psychologist visited me at home again, and after having consulted with the psychiatrist was confident from the their observations, and most critically, the Personality Disorder tests, that I had Avoidant Personality Disorder.
Hearing this was both a relief and a shock. And this is why I felt having a sub-forum for people with this spectrum of Anxious-type Personality Disorders would be of great support to those given this type of diagnosis. Personality Disorders have a stigma attached to them, mainly because of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Also, whilst there are many resources for those with Border-Line Personality Disorder on the Internet, places to find help and advice for people with Cluster C type PD's are almost non-existent. Because they are so intrinsically tied into anxiety, and anxiety states, No More Panic seems like a great home for a sub-forum for these types of disorders.
I do apologise for the length of this post, I never seem to be able to say anything succinctly, and I hope people don't feel as though I am interfering. I just felt that especially as a startling percentage of people with Panic Disorder may have APD (the Wiki article on Avoidant Personality Disorder explains it better than I can), it was an issue worth bringing to the table.
Best wishes,
Miffyrabbit.
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