by Annie Kosterman

Created on: August 28, 2009   Last Updated: August 29, 2009

Social anxiety disorder can be extremely disabling to a person, especially to someone who isn't ready for the anxiety to hit. When you are going from your car, where you feel perfectly fine, then make your way towards the doors of the store, your chest gets tight, your vision goes a little blurry, you start to tremble and you don't know why. But the closer you get to those doors the worse you feel. Now you are in the store and you are in such a state of anxiety that you begin to think things that are not true. Like everyone is looking at you because of the feelings you are having. You begin to believe that others can see you having these symptoms. But the logical side of your brain is working over time to try to convince you that that is not the case. Then you tend to feel your skin crawling because you feel all of these eyes on you and you don't know whether to go further in the store or turn and go back out to the car. I usually went back to the car and bawled my eyes out when I got there because the pressure in my chest was so heavy that I had to cry to release it.

That was and still is my number one reliever of anxiety, is to cry. When it's the social anxiety, the best thing for me to do is leave the environment I am currently in. Once I feel the pressure's off of me, like nobody is looking at me anymore I feel an instant release of some of the tension built up inside. Another way that I have found that works rather is to be in the company of another when you go somewhere. If there is someone that you are familiar with, there is something, rather someone to take your mind off of the usuall, "Everyone's looking at me." You'll have a person there to avert your attention to something at hand rather than your surroundings.

I used to be so bad that I couldn't even go the 20 yards from my front door to my mail box and get the mail without having a panic attack because of thinking that the people in the cars driving by were looking at me and talking bad about me in their cars where I couldn't hear them. I would grab the mail and then literally run into the house crying. This only happened a handful of times before I came to the conclusion that I was not able to go get the mail any more. That I needed stronger help than I was receiving and that obviously the medication that I was taking was not doing its job.

Usually Social Anxiety or Phobias can be resolved with just a bit of counseling. Some need psychotherapy and some need that and the help of medications to get through the day. It all depends on how bad you are as an individual.

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