Quote:
Originally Posted by Bipolarchic14
I was and still am a little like you with the social anxiety. Just to give you an idea, I started working for a larger company about 4 years ago. For the first couple of years I would literally go hide in the corner at lunch rather than go sit with people in the cafe. I had the intensive outpatient program that I attended and the anxiety it produced made my asthmatic cough to act up so I would be just sitting there coughing continuously. Relationships, gave up on that 11 years ago. I finally started working through the fear by getting involved with various events. Best thing I ever did. Still feel odd but manageable anxiety. Definately helps to face your fears. The big thing holding me back in the depression and suicidal thought. Not sure how to tackle that.
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I tried helping out a charity event around Thanksgiving. I ended leaving before it even started. My fiance's mom was running it so I couldn't just leave and I ended up in tears when I had to tell her that I couldn't stay. Most embarrassing thing ever. I'm HORRIBLE with crowds and the only people I knew were his parents. They told people to pair up (not my strongest suit) to work together and then started sticking the leftover people (myself included) together. I just freaked out. When I was telling her what was going on, she offered to let me work in a room instead of out in the crowd, but by that point my heart was racing, the tears were flowing and I was huddling in on myself. I decided I was too far gone to recover with any kind of dignity and ran home to feel completely stupid for the rest of the night. That was literally the last time I even tried to do anything where I'd be expected to interact with a billion people at once.
Funny thing is, she knew about the crowd thing I just don't think she believed me/knew how bad it really was. I don't do crowds unless my fiance is with me for this very reason. I hate breaking down in front of other people.