I wanted to make this a blog entry, but I see you can't make a blog unless you have been a member for a certain amount of days. So, this might end up a bit of a ramble/rant.

I've had social phobia for almost a decade. Before I was diagnosed, I was very shy, insecure, self-conscious, quiet. But since my diagnosis, life has been pretty much non-existent for me. For the first three years I didn't leave my house, and now, 6 years after finally being able to go out, I still feel awful in public - highly self-conscious, extremely self-critical, obsessed with my looks, and how my body language might make me appear (arrogant, vain, bored, etc)... completely unable to talk to strangers, even shop staff. I need someone with me, either friends or my parents, most of the time it's my parents. I go out with them every so often, maybe once or twice a week, some weeks not at all. I haven't been out by myself yet. I'm planning to buy things myself first (something I cannot do), before I go out alone.

I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of being me. I truly believe there is something very wrong with me, that it can't just be social phobia. I have seen other people with social phobia get on with their lives, with jobs, places of their own... independent. But me... I feel like a young child, trailing along behind my parents. I feel... stupid. I can't explain it. I don't know how to explain it to anyone, even mental health professionals. I just feel so... dumb. I don't know how to DO anything, any normal adult thing in everyday life, I can't do it. It's not only that I'm afraid.... it's that I also don't know how. Sometimes I wonder if there's something else besides social phobia that hinders me from learning the little things in life. I've seen my parents, and even my friends, do things plenty of times, but I just don't take it in. It's like I have a mental block. I want to learn, I want to know how to do simple, adult things, but... I just can't. I feel like a little girl. I think I even act like a little girl, which I hate. I want to feel like and act like a grown woman, not a ten year old. I don't know how to explain it. I just don't seem to have grown up... at all.

I keep thinking that all I need to do is act differently. I know how I want to act... I have this whole other personality in my head. I daydream a lot, and in my daydreams I am confident and capable. A woman. I just need to figure out how to take her from my daydreams and put her in the front of my mind... make her me. I don't know if I'm talking any sense. Maybe I'm losing it. I just know that I can't go on the way I am. I'm completely useless. I'm so awkward and childish, and I don't want to feel that way any more. I want to change. But when I go out, I completely lose all self-control (not that I have any to begin with), and go on what I can only describe as auto pilot. For instance, I had my hair cut today. I made a total fool of myself by putting the cloak on the wrong way. Then, in the chair, I went all stiff and played with my ring as I usually do. I never know where to look... at myself in the mirror? At other people in the mirror? My lap? When I look at myself all I see is a grumpy-looking, tense little girl. So I look down. When I look down, all I see is my fidgeting. On it goes. During all this, my mind is racing, so I don't catch anything around me. It's like I'm completely spaced out. It's always like that, not just at the hairdressers but anywhere in public. I just hate it. I hate me. Acting differently doesn't seem possible any more, when you're actually in the situation.

I feel so trapped inside my own head and I want out. What was nature thinking when it made me? Why am I so useless/helpless/dumb/spaced out/childlike? Why why why.

More importantly, how how how? How can you change yourself? How can you change the way you act in a situation? Is it possible to no longer be tense? To know where to look? To know what to say? To know what to do? To hear the things around you?

I just want it all to stop. Mental health professionals... are overrating my capabilities. They think I can just walk into a room and sit down with strangers for over two hours, or walk into a clothing store and buy a vest, belt, necklace and scarf with smiles. If I could really do those things, wouldn't I have done them? Wouldn't I have gotten better years ago? Maybe this is actually how I am, for life. What then?

I'm almost afraid to even try to act differently, even just at home. Maybe I could practice by acting out a different personality at home, but I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know why... maybe I'm afraid that it would be too phony, that everyone would hate it, or take me to the loony bin for finally cracking up... or maybe that it would obliterate me. Isn't that what I want, though? To be obliterated?

Thank you for reading this mess.