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Old Jan 08, 2015, 10:31 PM
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Rose76 Rose76 is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2011
Location: USA
Posts: 12,873
Everyone and their brother is handing out psych diagnoses these days. It's gotten way out of hand, and your parents have jumped onto the bandwagon. I don't blame you being disgusted with their response. You kind of opened the door to this when you used the term "social anxiety." That, too, is a psych diagnosis.

It's best to leave the labels to the doctors, who are the only ones (IMHO) who have the training and experience to use them wisely. (I am also totally opposed to therapists coming up with diagnoses.) Just deal with the facts. You are feeling uncomfortable in situations where you have to interact with people whom you don't trust to accept you. If describing that to a parent doesn't bring a helpful response, then you may have to deal with this without much parental support. That's too bad.

Getting a diagnosis won't help the situation much either. Fight hard against the temptation to withdraw and avoid people. Force yourself to be brave and interact as much as you can with others. Join clubs, accept invitations . . . do whatever to come out of your shell. I believe that an awful lot of social anxiety is a combination of lack of experience with people and lack of having good people skills role-modeled for you by your parents.

Study your parents, and ask yourself how good are they socially? I'll bet they have some problems of their own. They may be more at the root of your problem than anything else. Obviously they follow pop fads, which is what this anti-gluten thing is all about. Humans evolved into wheat eaters many thousands of years ago. Some people have Celiac disease and truly can not eat wheat products containing gluten. Be very glad you don't have that disease and eat what you feel like eating.