Social Anxiety Blogs

Hi.

This is a bit weird. I just found this site tonight, after doing yet another online search for information on Social Anxiety Disorder and support groups, etc. Every time I have a bad SA incident I guess reading the Wikipedia article about the disorder for the thousandth time, or whatever, makes me feel better. Tonight of all nights I should not be doing this, since I have a ton of homework to do. However, after a really bad SA incident, I am, as always, left totally unable to concentrate on anything but my disorder. (You know that post-anxiety feeling when your body feels totally exhausted and yet your mind is racing with self-lacerating thoughts?) So I found this site and thought how good it would be to make a contact with someone else who suffers from the disorder. Do you? Anyway, you may never get this, and may not exist for all I know, but I have to write this down anyway, so why not to you? Tonight's scenario was a very intimate dinner party. Just this classmate of mine, who I've slowly gotten to know since we live in the same apartment complex and we see each other on the bus a couple times a week, and his wife, who I'd met briefly once before. Surprisingly, my anticipatory anxiety before the event was minimal. It was not until about twenty minutes or so before I left my place that I started to get the hot flashes and feel my stomach start to turn over a bit. However, I thought I had it pretty well under control; I was feeling more relaxed than I do before most social events. The plans got changed slightly, and the guy ended up driving over to my place to pick me up. This was a bonus, because it saved me the excruciating part of going into a house with a group (in this case only two, but still that is imposing) waiting for me, and suddenly turning their attention on me. So, I got in the car and I thought I was doing OK. I didn't feel too warm, my mouth wasn't too dry, and I was speaking coherently, not like a babbling idiot as usual. I definitely started to warm up when we got to his place and walked into the kitchen with the guy and his wife (too claustrophobic); however, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of breathing evenly and not panicking. If he noticed the perspiration on my head and face, it was still minimal and well within the bounds of normalcy. I managed to cool down a little. But then it hit. We served our own food and took our places around the table. Apparently the closeness was too much. I began to pour sweat down my head and face. I tried to ignore it and focus on the conversation; I tried to appear normal, to let it pass, because I know these are good, non-judgmental people that would be patient with someone with a disorder like this (clearly they have been able to detect that I have some psychological issue). But it was impossible; I must have begun to panic, though I really don't recall having the more extreme symptoms of panic. But for whatever reason, I was really pouring sweat. I had to excuse myself from the table to get away and wipe my head and face with paper towels. Since I was too disoriented by then just to say "Excuse me, I am really warm, this happens sometimes, can I just have a paper towel, I'll cool down in a moment" or even, God forbid, make a joke about it--all I was able to do was to mutter something like "God, I'm really hot. Excuse me." The next minute I'm back at the table like nothing happened, trying to make up for the discomfort I have caused them by putting on an artificial smile and trying to say clever things (in my moments of panic I had been muttering incoherantly, asking questions that had already been answered, laughing inappropriately, etc.) By now I notice "my friend's" (this remains to be seen) wife's extreme discomfort; she keeps looking away from me when I try to resume eye-contact and overzealously try to prove that I am now OK, I am not the freak I appeared just minutes ago. By now the sweating has stopped and I am almost back to normal, except not quite because my body has gone into depressed mode, which always follows an anxiety attack. I feel worn out and flat. It is an effort to follow the conversation. After dinner she immediately gets up to do the dishes and does not address another word to me until I leave. The friend makes up an excuse to get me out of the house as soon as possible, though we had planned to do some studying together. I leave and go out into the night and walk by myself for three hours, then come back and read about Social Anxiety Disorder, but, as always, refuse to believe that anyone else out there can be living with this fatal disease. If anything here sounds familiar and you want to correspond about it, and if I haven't frightened you too much (I assure you I'm not always so bleak), please do respond.

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