Social Anxiety

Does anyone else suffer from this? Do you ever avoid social events because of it? How to you deal with it?

I've had social anxiety for as long as I can remember, James.    I have avoided certain activities - like a function where nearly everyone is a stranger to me - because I just feel too uncomfortable to enjoy it.  I do force myself to do other acitivities, though, that are still a challenge but less stressful, like perhaps one or two people will be strangers but several friends will be there as well.  Or go with a group to a movie.  I think it is important to keep pressing the limits to keep from becoming isolated.

My first impulse is to just stay in bed and live inside my mind, but I know that is unhealthy so I have to force myself to get out of the house. I've only been to one social function, a birthday party for a niece, and that was about 3-4 weeks into my CT. I nearly lost it a few times but made it through three hours. Now, I go out for morning walks and try and say "hi" to people I encounter in my neighborhood, but that's about the extent of it. My wife and son are about the only people I talk to daily. However, as I come up on six weeks I'm starting to get tired of being cooped up all the time, so I'm thinking of doing something like going to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I posted elsewhere for feedback on NA. I haven't been happy with AA in the past, so I'm trying to find out of NA is more supportive for someone coming off benzos. I need to be around people but I want to do it in a way where I feel safe. I'm still not feeling all that well, so I don't want to overwhelm myself trying to be in social settings where I'm very uncomfortable.

 

Damn, these pills are a curse! This is still me on Day 38: 

 

 

 I have avoided certain activities - like a function where nearly everyone is a stranger to me - because I just feel too uncomfortable to enjoy it. 

 

I feel the same way most of the time. Have you ever had CBT? I'm looking into finding a good therapist that can help me overcome this social avoidance problem. I've had it for as long as I can remember and it causes me a lot of grief. The klonopin has helped me to get some exposure but I know that I must learn natural ways to cope when the anxiety comes. 

I think some of my pre benzo anxiety was social anxiety.  Probably still have some at various times or functions but am more aware of it.  There's a pretty good book by Jonathan Berent called "Work Makes me Nervous", more about workplace anxiety which is a form of social anxiety.

 

Best,

 

Vertigo

When it comes to strangers I have always been relatively shy well since I was a toddler.  I do find that once I get to know someone and gauge what their personality/sense of humor is like.. I can become quite a chatterbox.  Problem is that at major functions the rooms are filled with strangers and I can't possibly get to know them all.  Plus I don't always know what to say.

 

I mean if I don't know someone and they say "Hey, so you are in school huh?" I will say something like "Yep, got a few years left" and then they will say something banal like "Oh yeah? that's good".. and then we both just nod and stare at each other... it can feel awkward    

 

I think my social anxiety is an offshoot of my generalized anxiety.  I did manage to get through my Fundamentals of Speech class, but I took a klonopin before my major speeches.  Not something I can do from this point on.  Oh well, it is for the best  

I have had social anxiety all my life.  I regard it as having ruined my life a lot, since it stopped me having relationships and close friendships.  At one point a doctor at an outpatient mood disorders clinic told me she thought I had either Asperger's Syndrome or Avoidant Personality Disorder and wasn't sure which one, but as far as I can tell, my primary problems are social and generalised anxiety.  Everything else has been secondary to them (benzo use included of course) because of the problems they can cause.

 

I'd (ultra-seriously) recommend that anyone who is having trouble with this problem try anything and everything possible to help reduce its impact as soon as possible, otherwise you can start not wanting to be close to people anymore.  Maybe you get used to the isolation, or just worry too much about about social interactions and decide to avoid them as much as possible.  I have just quit my job due to not wanting to have to socialise with the blokes at work, even though they are all good people to work with, so this can become a major limitation in life.  I'd say don't put it off, get help now so you don't waste your life this way.

 

I could have taken benzos again regularly but didn't want to go back on them.  I have found phenibut extremely helpful when really having no choice but to go through social situations, but it has to be taken hours beforehand and could be addictive.  Baclofen is similar but people seem to say it doesn't produce tolerance.  Gabapentin and pregabalin are two other drugs but tolerance could also occur to them, although pregabalin is called Lyrica and is approved for general anxiety in Europe I'm pretty sure.  Various antidepressants and herbal substances are found helpful for anxiety by some people, I think the SSRIs are said to help anxiety aswell as depression but any other serotonin-enhancing antidepressant (eg. some tricyclics, tetracyclics, L-tryptophan, 5-htp, maybe MAOIs) would work similarly you would imagine.  Mood stabilisers and low-dose antipsychotics are other treatment options, which may not be as unpleasant or hard-core as some people imagine if not used at excessive doses.  Personally I am trying mirtazapine (Remeron) and maybe a mood stabiliser like Tegretol or Trileptal, since they are my only options apart from an antipsychotic (other antidepressants didn't help or caused worsened anxiety).  You could ask your doctor about these options.

 

Some people also say cognitive behavioural therapy to be helpful, and other therapy types could probably help.  The doctor can probably also recommend counsellors and psychologists who do this sort of therapy.

I NEVER had social anxiety before benzos.  While in tolerance w/d I was crippled by it and became afraid to even go to family functions.  Now at 4 1/2 months out from Detox I LOVE to be around people again!

I NEVER had social anxiety before benzos.  While in tolerance w/d I was crippled by it and became afraid to even go to family functions.  Now at 4 1/2 months out from Detox I LOVE to be around people again!

 

Great to hear!  My anxiety has definitely been worse at times due to benzos, even though it existed before them.  I hope it all continues to go well for you.

This is becoming the number one stressor for me. Before, I was a shy person, but I could still go to places and get to know a few people and have fun. But NOW, I go to anything that has some people I don't know and I get terrible chest tightness/pain and head tension...it makes it so hard to concentrate on a convo that I just sort of sit there. Had a house warming party for my now ex g/f and I tried to be involved, but eventually I had to go into the room and watch some tv to calm down, everyone was asking if I was ok, or whats wrong with me. Hmmm..still trying to figure this one out

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I usually take a Magnesium with me incase things get bad, I can take it to stave off the anxiety for maybe an hour or so 

Very interesting comments...

 

I also suffer from social anxiety, always have ever since I was a child.

 

For the first 8 months or so taking Xanax made my social anxiety almost disapear,

 

I thought this was a miracle drug because it also "cured" me from life long insomnia!

 

Woah!!! my shyness was gone and I could sleep ( wich gave me energy )

 

I really really thought Xanax was the miracle drug - I really  really believed I had found the happiness pill for me !!!

 

but then once I began to have withdrawal symptoms everyday ( back then I thought it was depression and so did my doctor... ) my social anxiety became worse.

 

Then when anti-depressants did not help I wanted to hide from the world even more,

 

And then a couple months ago when I began taking less and less Xanax and the withdarwal symptoms started and I began having suicidal thoughts, I almost stopped going outside completely...

 

Long story short,

 

Like a siren song, benzos may seem like the most wonderful thing at first - they seduce you because at first they make you feel sooo good - but in the end they make everything worse.

 

I have now accepted the fact that I will always suffer to some degree of social anxiety.

 

It does not make me a bad person.

 

 

There are certain non-benzo medications (not z drugs) that I have found helpful in temporarily removing social anxiety, but most or all of them probably feature tolerance and withdrawal just like benzos.  I have even thought of rotating two or more, to keep tolerance down, but a person could also end up with problems with several drugs instead of one if they couldn't stick to a rigid rotation schedule.

 

I'm pretty much against the idea of taking pills these days, and would only ever consider doing the above on rare occasions if unable to cope with a social situation I couldn't get out of, or to get used to social situations so that confidence and social skills could be built and drugs wouldn't be needed after that.

 

I have never personally found cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to be very helpful, but many others say they do.  I'd say give it a try.  Other therapies would also exist if CBT isn't helpful for an individual.  A big bonus is that these treatments, if they work for you, don't feature tolerance, withdrawals, or inability to be sustainable over the long-term.

I have suffered from social anxiety for a few years now, due to mental health problems.

 

I have some friends from n/a who have really helped me. It is always suggested to me to face my fear and push through it

and this has helped. If i am not careful i can get caught up in my head and play the situation and live all the worse case

scenarios even before i have got to the location, if i am going out for example.

 

My experience is, it is never as bad as i build it up to be. So if i have to be around a lot of people, i just do it and actually

it's usually not too bad.

 

It is really hard though and i can totally relate to people who go through this.

 

Keep fighting guys !

Hey All--

 

Re: gabapentin/neurontin--

 

When I was on 800-1200 mgs Neurontin/24 hours and quit, nothing happened. But I was not aware that anything COULD happen, despite having been a nurse at one time and unusually good at psychopharmacology.

 

Now that I've read so much about the symptoms ppl here have had, I'm a bit concerned about my own use of same. Self-prescribed, I'm on about 2.4-3 g/day. Took less, on purpose, yesterday, beneath a Klon taper to 0.25--a clean dose, no guesstimating--and yesterday stank. Was my own bright idea to undergird the taper with this stuff. Hope I can go down concomitantly--WTF was I thinking??

 

 

Will try to educate myself further about this subject. When i was unaware that w/d could happen, nothing did happen. But I cannot say the same thing about those F'in benzos. Nobody here can, I would guess.

 

Back when I know more,

 

julia

Juliad has got me thinking...

 

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that sometimes when a person quits a drug initially they have no problem.  But then if they go back to it it seems like a switch is turned on in the brain and the next time they go off it is an entirely different story.  It is like you suddenly reach a point of no return, where you can no longer just quit it like before.  I am talking about taking said drug for more than a few months in both cases.

 

Not trying to hijack this thread, just curious!

I am living proof of that Susan...got off klonopin 3 times in the past after taking for 6-8 months at the very longest--tapered .0625/week with absolutely no w/d.  This time I have been crippled because went on, was ct'd, put on ativan, tapered, horrid, reinstated on k and tapered again.  how can a brain handle that?

Yes, and my tolerance w/d didn't start until around my 8th year on Xanax, like something changed all of a sudden.  I just find this interesting.  Wish we would have realized before hitting the point of no return, right?

Social anxiety has been my life's story but now in 9 weeks Benzo free, I'm getting worse. I feel defeated. I have agoraphobia but I tried again yesterday to get out. I went to two stores and my anxiety escalated but I did the best I could. Today it seems like I have a delayed anxiety reaction from yesterday. I remember the later years while on Klonopin, when I went anywhere, the following day I felt worse even though I was at home. Why am I getting this hyperactivity feeling afterwards. Does this happen to anyone else? I feel like I take 1 step forward and 5 steps back. I really want to get out of the house. I'm so lonely being so much to myself.

I have the social phobia, but only started when my panic attacks start about 5 years ago, just kinda avoided some social situations, before panic and anxiety i was like "wild child" with/out phobia or fear , now it's diffrent and i just push my self as far as i can go, only way i can live somehow socially

i relate to alll that has been said.  i agree that our cognitive (thinking) ability is our best tool - just keep deleting the thoughts.  iwas very social before but now i am not.  i am letting that be ok for now.  just trying to heal and not tax my nervous system too much.  i have workers coming to do my trees and weeds tomorrow and i dread it. 

every day is an accomplishment.  i get all guilty but i have friends i talked to and they keep telling me it's ok to just rest.

i have been in aa many years.  i feel safe at my home group.  aa was terrible to addicts in the past (fear based - change) but has gotten better.  each group is dif. na is great too tho.  there are so many young people in there with pill issues - that had no addictive personalities - it's just the pills are so addictive.

we are heroes.  this helped me:  don't know where i got it

5. When people are in recovery, they have a lot of fears. One is that they will never get better. Another is that their symptoms are really what they are like - perhaps what they have always been like. Both of these fears are stimulated by benzo withdrawal. In other words they are the thought components of benzo withdrawal, just as insomnia is a physical component.

we can do this.  we are doing this

I was feeling so good until I went out tonight to a friends house.  There were four couples and I know them pretty well.  Well, it sucked.  I had suffered with social anxiety for so long but the klonipan pretty much cured me from this.  But, tonight I started feeling anxious before going, so I took .125 to calm me down.  I then had one beer there.  I couldn't relax.  Felt very anxious and then felt vertigo and like I was losing control off my mind and body.  I was scared to even walk and couldn wait to leave.  I feel sad.  How can I come off the klonipan and then suffer with what made me go on in the first place.  I like to socialize and be viewed as normal. I don't want to go back there (social anxiety, panic attacks)  :'(