I can tell you that I have used xanax in the past for job interviews and in times where a panic attack was coming on and it helped me so much. It didn't knock me out it just calmed my panic down and lasted about 30 min afterwards I was a little sleepy but nothing major. I take a half of 0.5 mg

Hello Gare. Welcome to the anxiety forum.

My social anxiety is so intense that I don't even *want* my place in the human species. I'd rather be an earth worm. Yes, therapy helped me ALLOT. The first way it helped me was in trusting humanity, in general. That was not a small deal in my own case. The trust eventually grew into an entire support network. I'm beginning to wonder if it really does take a village to live a healthy life. Just wondering. . . I still ain't no social butterfly.

In addition, therapy gave me a ton of tools to find better coping mechanisms than disappearing into the wilderness for indefinite periods. These days my wilderness retreats are more joy within the bioweb than escape from humanity.

I'm pretty clueless on the medication. I've used them, but I was in *need* of emotional leveling when I did. That zombie feel was a good thing in comparison to the emotional chaos of what I was going through without them. I wasn't on them for very long, but they were helpful in the crisis phases.

Thankfully my anxiety is not nearly as intense as what you describe arfie. I can push through it most times, but it leads to avoidance behaviors.

Good morning, Gare (It is Saturday 5:42 AM eastern daylight time.) One of the things my (now retired) therapist diagnosed me with was "a pretty severe case of social anxiety." I have no experience with anxiety medication, BUT I spent much of my adult life "self-medicating" with alcohol. When I first got sober over ten years ago, the therapist (she was at that time the marriage counselor to my now-ex wife and me) assigned my wife and me to try to go to a restaurant once a month. I had NO idea that I could go into a restaurant and eat there without alcohol. That took time and healing and continued work with the therapist, every other week for years. As I improved in self-acceptance and self-esteem, my social anxiety lessened, quite a bit.

Hi gare,

Good for you for wanting to work on your social anxiety and for reaching out on here. All your questions are really great ones.

Therapy can be very effective for social anxiety (SA). The therapy with some of the most empirical evidence for SA is a specific type of behavioral therapy known as exposure therapy. In this type of therapy, you will work with a therapist and identify your feared/challenging social situations. In the end, you'll make a hierarchy with these situations so that the ones that are easiest/cause the least amount of anxiety for you are on the bottom, and the ones that cause greater distress and anxiety are on the top. Working from the bottom of that hierarchy, you will begin to work on facing the situations that cause you anxiety (beginning with the easier ones and working your way up). The crux of this therapy is that, with repeated exposure to the situations that scare you (and with time) your anxiety in these situations will be greatly reduced. Especially because you mentioned having a lot of avoidance behaviors (common in SA) I think this therapy could be really helpful for you.

Because you are being asked to face situations that are scary to you (instead of the default, to avoid), an initial increase in anxiety is normal and expected, which makes this a potentially challenging therapy!! However, keeping the end goal in mind (that you will experience less anxiety in social situations and be able to live life more freely without social anxiety holding you down) it is well worth it. Plus, you would have your therapist's support and work only at a pace that is tolerable. A lot of times, therapists will also work simultaneously on helping you develop a wider variety of coping skills you can use in anxious situations. Ones that come immediately to mind include deep breathing, mindfulness mediation, and grounding techniques.

Another therapy that can be useful for social anxiety is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT (pronounced just like the verb) for short. I won't go too much into detail on here, but I really like ACT and think it is worth googling to read about some of the main concepts. I think they can be very helpful, especially for social anxiety.

Regarding your questions about medications, I don't have a ton of experience/knowledge with those. However, I will say, that in hearing from others' experiences, medications can be helpful for SA, especially when combined with therapy. Working with a psychiatrist, you can find a medication that works best for you and will not cause you to have any negative side effects. I have several relatives who have been on medications and they did not report feeling like zombies, but rather, the meds helped them feel more like themselves. The downside to meds is that it can take a lot of trial and error to find the right med for you, there can be side effects (not always though) and they can take some time to work (usually 6-8 weeks at the right dosage for full effects).

Regarding your final question - yes, there are medications you can take that are quick acting and can be taken only as needed. The class of meds I am thinking of are benzodiazepines. However, I will say that doctors seem more and more hesitant to prescribe these types of meds because they do have addictive potential. I am not aware of other as needed meds out there, though I am sure there may be some I am just not aware of.

Sorry that was so long. I am not a medical professional or anything, (just some personal experience and interested in the topic). I would definitely suggest talking to one about this so you can get the help you deserve. Social anxiety can be debilitating but fortunately, there are many things out there that can really help and make a huge difference.

All the best to you.

thanks wildflowers44. that was helpful information.