SkyHiigh,

I apologize for writing you an essay but this could save you from years of suffering.

This sounds dead on like Generalized Social Anxiety Disorder (GSAD) to me, although I could be mistaken. To find out what it is and how to treat it, I suggest you get yourself a mental health professional specializing in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (google that term), and that you buy the book "The Feeling Good HandBook" by Dr. Davd Burns IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT WAIT! This book was the beginning of my (still incomplete) recovery from GSAD, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for it.

First off, let me tell you a little about GSAD as I understand it. GSAD is a generalized phobia of people, social interactions, and situations in which a person reflects on their perceived inadequacy. People with GSAD believe they possess a global defect or defects which strip them of their human worth. When they are made to think of their defects explicitly, such as when another person criticizes them, the resulting feelings of shame, guilt, and self-loathing are so cataclysmic that they experience a quasi-panic attack (fast breathing, chills, sweaty hands and face, overwhelming anxiety, etc.). There is usually intense depression and often suicidal thoughts associated with the quasi-panic.The fear of these attacks becomes all-consuming and the person develops a phobia of anything which can set them off - namely other people, social situations, and activities which "highlight" their perceived defects. So for example, a person with GSAD may be afraid to talk to a person they like, to meet new people, talk in front of a class, be seen at the gym, or listen to music they like which is "too cool" for them.

According to recent medical research, people with GSAD have structural abnormalities associated with the areas of the brain which regulate anxiety. That is, people with GSAD suffer firstly from "hyper-anxiousness" which is a causal factor in their developing GSAD later on in life, usually around age 12 or 13. Second, people with GSAD as a rule suffer from severe mental distortions (Google "cognitive distortions") - irrational thoughts which follow a pattern of thinking that doesn't reflect reality and which are destructive. For example, thinking in terms of Black and White / all or nothing, or projecting what you imagine onto other people's thoughts (mind reading). I have found that GSAD suffers experienced a social trauma of some sort immediately prior to the onset of the disorder, although I don't know if this is true for everyone. I believe that the combination of hyper-anxiousness, severe distortions, low self esteem, and a traumatizing social experience (for instance being picked on in school, or having to perform in class) can lead to a downward spiraling condition in which a person perceives that they have major "defects". As this perception gets worse and worse, they begin to put up a "false-self" image to the world as a defense mechanism, and to constantly tell themselves that this is the real them rather than the "defective" person. However, this doesn't work when their "defects" are brought to light explicitly, and so they start to experience panic-like attacks whenever they are made to admit that these "defects" truly do exist and that they are "worthless". Consequently, they develop a phobic reaction to anything which can set off these attacks. This is the condition then that we call GSAD.

Needless to say this disorder is severely crippling. While GSAD is highly treatable (almost everyone recovers) it is also persistent and rarely disappears with time. Since a lot of people don't get help with it for years it is not uncommon to find people in their 30's with life-crippling GSAD. You cannot count on it going away on it's own or "getting better" with time. It won't happen, so if you believe you have GSAD then you must get help immediately and be proactive about doing the home-work your psych prescribes, because every year you waste is one you can never get back, and your life WILL GO BY, trust me. It happened to me.

So, if you DO have GSAD (and we don't know if you do or don't yet), what can you do on your own to get better? Here is a treatment plan which is working for me and I strongly advise you to try. Definately bring this up with a mental health professional.

1) GET YOURSELF the "Feeling Good Handbook" by Dr. David Burns and read the social anxiety section first, then read the rest of the book. Buy a notebook and start doing the exercises he instructs, putting aside 30 minutes a day for this work.

2) LOOK for a Psychologist specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) immediately. Tell them you may have GSAD and have them do a diagnosis.

3) IDENTIFY YOUR DEFECTS. In your notebook write down your worst thoughts about yourself. This will be terrifying and depressing when you let them out but it has to be done. Look for a pattern in the thoughts, what are they really about? You will find that they boil down to certain kinds of themes. For instance, you mentioned that you worried you were "stupid, fake". This is a common theme for GSAD. Other common ones are feeling inadequate because you blush, not meeting a standard of perfection (nice car, lots of friends, good job, etc), or not being funny. Anyway, keep working at it to find what your central "DEFECTS" are.

When you know what at least some of your alleged defects are, DO THE NEXT STEPS AT THE SAME TIME, NOT IN ORDER:

4) DEBUNK EACH DEFECT. I gaurantee you that if you do have GSAD, whatever you think is wrong with you is either grossly exaggerated or entirely baseless alltogether. You must systematically debunk your "defects" by using the CBT techniques described in Burns' book. It could go fast or take a long time depending on how hard you work at it, but you will win, trust me. Your plan should be like this for each "defect":

.......a) My "defect" is X.

.......b) What's so wrong with this, what does it mean if I am / do X? (Use the "vertical arrow technique" described in the handbook).

.......c) Use the CBT techniques to prove that either (1) the defect doesn't exist in the first place, or (2) that the consequences are bogus. It works best if you can show both things at once.

.......d) Sum it all up with a short sentence explaining why your "defect" is bullshyt.

.......e) Now write an affirming sentence explaining why you are okay as a person.

.......****HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:****

.......a) My "defect" is that I am stupid.

.......b) So what if I am stupid? --> Then I'll be a failure. ---> So what if I'm a failure? ---> Then no one will love me. ---> So what if no one loves me? ---> Then I can never be happy.

.......c) [DEBUNK THE DEFECT] What's the proof that I am stupid? --> I can't ever think of anything smart to say! --> Is this consistent with my grades and ability to solve problems? ---> No, I have good grades and I am good at solving problems. ---> Is this consistent with anxiety? ---> I don't know but I'll find out (go do research to find out, Google symptoms of social phobia, ask other people, etc). ---> What did I find out? ---> It turns out that people who get anxious often cannot think straight or be clever because the anxiety gets in the way. ---> So, if the same thing happens to millions of smart people whose only commonality with me is anxiety, and if I have good grades and can solve problems, then it MUST BE my anxiety that keeps me from finding smart things to say. --> Therefore, there is no evidence that I am stupid.

[DEBUNK THE CONSEQUENCES] What is the proof that I will be a failure just by being stupid? --> There is none, this is an assumption. Tens of millions of people are stupid relative to the average but they aren't failures. They have jobs and families and friends. Not everyone can be smart, not everyone can be average. ---> I don't know if this is true, what if I am just telling myself this? (go find out, look at people who get the low grades in school, etc.). ---> Results: I see lots of people who suck at school, have low-paying jobs, and obviously aren't bright, and yet they do indeed have friends, boyfriends, and lives. If they can do it even though they are dumb, then so can I even if I were dumb. There is no evidence that being stupid will make you a failure.

.......d) The fear that "I am stupid" is total bullshyt because having trouble finding smart things to say is a typical symptom of anxiety that affects smart people just as badly as anyone, and because even if I were stupid it wouldn't make me a failure in life.

.......e) I am a worthy person because I am intelligent and competent. I am overcoming a disorder that is preventing me from reaching my potential in the meantime.

*** END OF EXAMPLE ***

5) BUILD YOUR SELF-ESTEEM. One causal factor in developing GSAD is pathologically low self-esteem. We base our self-esteem on how much we meet our "ideal selves". Every one of us has a different idea about who this person is. Try this exercise: Write down what your ideal self will be like. Go over the list of qualities a few times and boil it down. These are the qualities on which you base your self worth. Now, write down how important each one is to you on a scale of 1 - 10, and then next to that write down how sure you are that you have that quality from 0 - 100%. You will see that your sense of self-worth is literally (how much it matters) X (how much you have it). This should tell you how to fix the problem. So, what you need to do now is work on debunking distortions that make you think you don't have the qualities you value, and to try and build those qualities as best you can. Also, you may need to change which qualities matter the most to you. People with GSAD often place high value on superficial qualities and low value on deeper ones. For instance, if you assigned a 10 to "being funny" and a 2 to "being honest", you might want to reconsider your values. I know that I used to think that being "normal" was super important but now I don't give a rats ***, lol.

6) KILL YOUR DISTORTIONS. Another causal factor in GSAD are cognitive distortions. These crop up pervasively in your thinking so you must expunge them entirely, even when they seem like they have nothing to do with your social anxiety. There is a list of approximately 15 distortions which you can find in the handbook or on the internet. You need to identify these and catch yourself doing them. Work with your psych to understand why each way of thinking is bogus. I wish you could do this one easily on your own but it really does take the help of others to execute this step. You may want to use your parents and to bring it up on internet forums when you don't understand why a distortion is "distorted".

Well, I hope this helps you. I didn't intend to spend so long or to write such an essay but I did. Best of luck.