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Posts created by Pete

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Did you know?

Hi ~m

My response was petulant and over-defensive. Not worthy of a 50 year-old father of three, professional (ha!) person. I apologise too. Immature indeed.

Communication is hard enough face-to-face with people we know well, let alone on a forum like this with strangers. I should have thought before I posted my kneejerk response.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Did you know?

Thanks for your tolerance. I go over the top on occasion here because it's the only place I can lay myself so bare and just let the black feelings flow - I can't do that with my family or workmates and spend daily life behind a mask. It's got to come out somewhere and this forum has drawn the short straw.

The vision board idea is interesting. Might help me find some goals beyond getting through each day.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Problems with avoidance

Absolutely, avoidance is just a natural reaction. If something makes me uncomfortable/unhappy/ill then the natural thing to do is avoid it when possible. If avoidance is not possible, then a swift escape.

It's difficult to force myself not to avoid the things that make me anxious or panicky. In my case, that is mainly social situations (and my phobia has a pretty wide definition of 'social'). I'll cross the road to avoid anyone I know, whether I like them or not. I'll go without a meal rather than have to eat it with anyone apart from my closest family. I will deliberately adopt a closed-in posture, silence or monosyllabic stupidity to discourage any attempts at conversation. I have lied and spent money and time to avoid social situations and anything else that intrudes upon me in a way I don't like.

By now, I'm very good at it indeed. It's a way of life, and happens almost unconsciously. Just the way I behave.

I can see the benefits of facing what I fear when talking about it in the abstract, but come the real situation my resolve melts away and I tell myself that I am dealing with it by escaping. The upshot of all this is that my self-esteem takes a dive with every act of avoidance, and I constantly berate myself for a coward.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Problems with avoidance

"It's the safety I feel when I don't talk to anybody that makes me continue it."

Right there, Craig, you've said it right there and hit the nail bang slap on the head. Safety.

Y'know, I've spent the most of my life behind a triple-layered, armoured shell, convincing myself that I didn't need human contact, that I was happy that way, that I was safe in there. It took me 35 years to see through that illusion and it's 35 years more difficult for me to do anything about it now, but you've done that already.

You are very wise and self-aware for someone so young (at least compared with my 50 years - I don't mean to patronise). You've got a whole future in which to blossom and grow, and I'm sure you shall.

see you around (but not for a meal!!!)

Pete

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Problems with avoidance II

The bulk of my anxiety is of the social variety, which is a shame as people are all over the place!

Your problem 4 below certainly applies to me, every word of it. I am highly self-critical, and berate myself as a spineless weakling and coward because I can't seem to enjoy what most other people do.

What do I miss due to my social anxiety? I believe that, anxiety or not, I'm by nature a fairly solitary soul, so I don't miss going out with friends. I have no latent desire to be the 'life and soul'. But it has got in the way of many things - certainly my career has suffered because I can't 'network', can't contribute to meetings, workshops etc. Personally? Well, I'm scared of ordinary things like asking in shops, telephoning..... I hate crowded restaurants and pubs, and can't understand how anyone can get pleasure from such places. As well as hating myself over this, I end up hating and resenting other people too, when I see them enjoy themselves socially. They seem to possess such a gift, but take it for granted.

I love music and, despite being well into middle age, still enjoy seeing bands. But I always go alone - my partner has different taste in music and I know nobody else - and I am embarrassed to get up and dance or jump about or enjoy the music physically in any way, even if everyone around me is doing so and wouldn't care what I did. Again, the people enjoying themselves without inhibition really annoy me, and on several occasions I have walked out of concerts by favourite bands before they have started because I just can't stand the people around me.

I play guitar, too. When I was a student, I was in a band, which I remember as some of the best fun I have ever had. It would be great to play in a band again, but I know nobody else who plays (I literally, and I say this without self-pity but as a fact - have no friends at all). I have no way of getting together with other old blokes of questionable expertise but great enthusiasm to play music. The thought of using the small ads fills me with fear.

I find myself taking a perverse pride in my non-sociability. A couple of years ago, I went away to a residential conference for work. It lasted three days and during that time I didn't talk to a single person, didn't go to any of the meals (ate sandwiches in my room) and at the end of it I felt such pride! Did it! I repeated the feat last year at another event.

We never have people over to our house to eat or to entertain - my partner knows how much I hate it (she's an outgoing, sociable type) so never invites anybody.

So, to sum up, my social anxiety has crippled my career, caused me to despise myself, deprived me of a social life and of much pleasure, turned me into a liar and shirker, and been a big cause of my depression.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

The Panic Cycle

The main physical symptom I get from acute social anxiety is a headache. That certainly feeds into the whole cycle because the headache can easily turn nasty - takes on migraine symptoms including nausea, hypersensitivity to light, sound, heta and ventilation, and thumping pain. As soon as I feel the headache come on, I worry about how it will develop, whether I will be sick in public....etc. It saps my concentration. I also feel guilty for having a headache and that such an invisible everyday ailment can be so debilitating.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Problems with avoidance II

~m

Thanks for your encouraging words. I have taken them on board, but I can't help feeling that it's so very long that I have been as I am that there is no way for me to remain myself and make the radical changes that are needed.

I'm really a universe away from wanting people over to my house - I just cannot imagine or contemplate the possibility. Maybe that's an eventual goal to aim for, but it's well down the line.....

Perhaps the writing could be a 'ladder' out. My personal writing is cathartic, is a release, and my fiction writing has led me to make some social contact - I was attending a small workshop/class, a huge step for me, but have now stopped. I did go into that in another thread, so won't reiterate at length, but basically the tutor was praising my writing and telling me I should try and get published. I felt very pressurised by that, as if suddenly my writing had standards to live up to, and it stopped being relaxing or fun. Stupid, huh? Also, it's a small group but has a fluid membership, so quite often I would turn up and there would be one or two new people there that I didn't know. I didn't like that, and found it hard to cope with.

Oh, how ingenious I can be in finding the cloud around every silver lining......

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Your top 3- 5 years from now

Compared to ~m, my day has been just a banal, routine day. Really nothing to distinguish it from many others - went to work, did a day's work, went home, relaxed in the evening, went for a walk, went to bed too late. I don't think that it will matter to any significant degree in five years' time.

Just another ordinary day in an ordinary life. Maybe in itself that is something to be thankful for.....

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Tip of the day

I'm with ~m............

Without my routine I would be totally lost!!!!!!

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Facebook on the Depression Center?

I don't think it's a great idea, for much the same reasons as Jacques and ~m. Facebook use carries with it all sorts of social pressure which can be counterproductive and there is the big issue of confidentiality and losing the security we feel posting here.

Facebook fosters a false sense of self-importance and makes it easy to be indiscreet and unwise, to post personal stuff and then to realise, too late, that you are sharing it with the whole world and their dog. That's why, after a few weeks using Facebook to see what the fuss was about, I stopped and now deeply dislike it.

So, in a nutshell, I'm a no.

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