Self-confidence/Mugging

Hello you people,

I was actually planning on writing a longer thread about all the things I've struggled with in my life which made me the person I am right now, but I'll leave it at this short thread first.
My self-confidence has really shrunk the past three years and as a result I've dealt with some social anxiety issues. This, however, has led me to smoke marihuana for half a year but I quit because I realized that it made my situation worse (intrusive thoughts, paranoia.)

Anyway, two weeks ago, I was sitting in a park with two friends at around 10:30 PM.All of us had the feeling that we we were being watched. I wanted to go but we kept sitting there. After a while two men came to us and one suddenly pulled out a gun, pointing at us. We were "asked" to hand out our cell phones. Since I didn't have a cell phone with me, I was bashed in the face because they didn't believe me. I eventually had to give them my purse. It was really a shock for all the three of us, we've never experienced a mugging before. We went to the police, I blocked my cards etc.

My friends have apparently come to terms with the incident, but I just can't. I used to walk outside alone at 4AM sometimes, and never has something like that happened to me. And now, I am just paranoid most of the time when it's dark and I'm outside, even during the daytime. I don't feel safe anymore. I'm beginning to obsess on this incident and even look up crime rates and stuff or imagine mugging situations and how I would react. It's really hard for me because even before that incident, I didn't feel quite safe because people can tell that I am not self-confident and this made my self-confidence go to zero. I believe that I'm therefore an easy target for criminals, if you will. I wanted to go to NYC by myself next year but I'm scared now. Last week, I had thoughts similar to psychosis. Again, I felt really paranoid although I was with a girl friend of mine. Suddenly thoughts like: This is a plot against me. The devil or whoever (something evil) won't stop till I mess up my life. He wants me to die. First the intrusive thoughts, the depression, the social anxiety and now the mugging ? Something must be wrong. I quickly realized, though, that this "devil" I was thinking about was my marihuana abuse and that my thoughts are not real.
However, it's evident that I'm having a hard time right now. I don't know where to go. And I wish I could just turn back time not trying to sopve my problems with drugs.
I don't even know what to ask. I just wanted to share my feelings

Kind regards

musicandsoul

Hi, musicandsoul, and welcome to Psych Central! It sounds to me like you' might some version of post-traumatic stress. Here's the link to our forum for that:http://forums.psychcentral.com/post-traumatic-stress/.

I encourage you to find a professional counselor to help you to work through these understandable issues. You are probably suffering more than your friends because you were actually physically hurt during the encounter. My guess, anyway.