Any time I deal with people outside my family and usually within my family, I am conflicted because I want to communicate with comfort and ease, but I feel distinctly uneasy. In the back of my mind is worry about my performance in the social situation. The question, "How am I doing?" far outweighs my focus on the subject. OCD thoughts soothe my mind in a way but create frustration with the monotony in my head.

Much of my life is like an out of body experience. I direct myself to get through most conversations and exposure in public with the goal of being accepted. This was horrifying at times when I was growing up. My only memories of childhood involve incredible fear: age five or six-praying that my mother and I would die at the same moment of precisely the same comfortable cause, so that I would never be without her.... Fear of my brothers dying when playing down the street, praying that God would bring them home safely..... Fear of my brother going to middle school and leaving me in elementary school alone, where I was already frightened and picked on..... Overwhelming fear of school when we moved. I was 12 years old, crying in school, having to be taken out and seen by guidance counselor, then my first psychiatrist.
I am convinced that by the end of middle school, an important part of me was broken or dead. I remained fearful in high school, wanting to be protected by the approval of others but definitely preferring to avoid them. I was an emotional parasite with girlfriends, never feeling loved enough, always wanting more.
I bombed high school and have spent the last 23 years functioning enough to pay my bills. Little inside me has changed.

In daily interaction, I have learned to fake it with varying success, but I invariably come away feeling uneasy at best. I worry over the words exchanged, and I agonize that I am not liked enough.
I am convinced that I am not liked as well as the average person. My natural shyness is unattractive. I am deeply uncomfortable in social situations still, and I want more than anything to live apart from the excitement and threat of the outside world.
I believe in my core that happiness is out of reach because it takes a full-time living of an out of body experience to show a hint of a result. A life committed to acting like other people and hurting is unacceptable. I really did try to be happy and worked my butt off to push myself through difficult situations for years, even taking a field service job to force myself to deal with others. I never felt anything but isolation. Now I am tired, cynical and unmotivated. I am resentful.
I am 41 years old, and the best anyone can tell me to feel better is think different thoughts. My dread of daily life is not even connected to conscious thoughts anymore. It is ingrained and instinctive.
I am taking Prozac and Wellbutrin. Does CBT stand a chance?