Anxiety Support Group

Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...

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Mike1975 01/15/2014

I've never had high self esteem, sometimes very low. But for most of my life it's been decent. In college I had my first panic attack and onset of social anxiety. Since then I get very anxious with big life changes, I believe more so than a "normal" person. I also have a very tough time with new social situations. Work has been great, but now we have a new guy(before it was just me and one other male who is a friend). I have been on medication for the "bumps in the road" but this threw me for a loop. I've worked with the same people for years and instantly started questioning if they will like this guy more, I'll be pushed aside, ignored,etc. Plus I hear how much like my friend he is which doesn't help. I'm taking klonopin 4mg once daily and 150mg of Effexor. I was getting by the first week or so but have a really tough few days. Overanalyzing others' interactions, feeling left out, the usual social anxiety stuff. I see my therapist tomorrow which is good, I'm hoping to bring some good ideas back with me. I know there are esteem issues mixed in with the social anxiety(I've always been shy with new people wondering what they'd think but never agonizing over it like I do since the onset of my disorder in college) since I can feel worthless very quickly just because someone new arrives. I've been just trying not to worry, but it's automatic. Just looking for any input, experiences, anything really especially from people who have been in this type of situation and/or suffer from Social Anxiety. Thank you very much.

Mike1975 01/15/2014

I'm even worrying my friend will prefer the other guy and push me to the curb. I work with a small group and not from this area, so I don't have a network of friends here except for some acquaintances. Also not the type to just start a conversation with a stranger. So this fear is pretty high on my list, no matter how untrue or illogical it might be.

LuckyEmpath 01/15/2014

I always had low self esteem but then I worked with a therapist who taught me to say nice things to myself. She taught me that what I say to myself is just as hurtful as what others say to me - the brain doesn't know the difference between me thinking it or someone else saying it. So I worked very hard to change the way I think about myself. The first thing I had to work on was how I felt about my physical appearance. I was an overweight woman in a society that said I should be as thin as a super model. My therapist gave me tasks to do like looking in a mirror and finding one thing I liked about myself. So, every day, I would look in the mirror and say "Yuck! You are so fat and ugly!.... but you have pretty eyes". Eventually (and I mean months) when I looked in the mirror my self talk changed to "I have pretty eyes.....Yuck! You are so fat and ugly!". I was saying the same things but the positive came first. Eventually (and I mean many more months/years) I looked in the mirror and no longer saw an ugly fat girl. I saw me. A beautiful young woman with curves. Slowly I began to have more self esteem and here I am today a self confident woman (20 years later) who is not afraid of much. I am not even afraid that others don't like me. If they don't, so be it. Their loss. In my 20's I would have been devastated if someone didn't like me.

It takes time to change your way of thinking and how you feel about yourself. Do your homework every day and eventually you will see the results.

Take care

Dawter 01/15/2014

I went through social anxiety when I was young and still do but not to the same extent. Maybe cognitive behavioural therapy would help. There are work books you can buy to do it at home.

We need to be aware of the negative thought as it is happening. We are always assuming that other people are thinking the worst. We need to think of what other possibilities they might be thinking and then get ourselves to rationalize that we are getting carried away with our thoughts because of our low self esteem.

Mike1975 01/15/2014

Thank you for the responses. I know if it was just low self esteem it wouldn't be affecting me as much, since I had been handling meeting new people ok until developing social anxiety. I just guess esteem is just something added on to it that makes it worse.

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