Need advice for social anxiety treatment

[Sour-Marshmallow]

I’ve dealing with severe social anxiety for as long as I can long as I can remember. Unfortunately it’s gotten much worse in recent months which pushed me to get help from my GP since I couldn’t deal with it any longer. As I expected, he diagnosed me with longstanding social anxiety and referred me to a psychiatrist for further treatment. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the current waitlist for that psychiatrist was 8 months. I called different places and the earliest appointment was May next year (I live in a small city). To make it worse those places all charge $300 for each appointment, which I’m not sure I can afford in the long term. So I was wondering if it would be possible for me to go back to my GP and ask him to prescribe me some anxiety medications until I get an appointment with a psychiatrist. I don’t want to sound like a drug seeker but I really can’t live like this anymore. Thanks.

[Sophie_M]

Hey Sour-Marshmallow,

Thanks for sharing this. Firstly, well done for getting to the GP and talking it through with them, that's such an important step and can be really difficult. 

Hopefully, we'll hear from the community soon, but in the meantime we wanted to drop in with a few suggestions as this is a really good question and we think there'll be others in the same boat.

We're sorry to hear that there's such a long waitlist and cost attached to your referral. Going back to the GP to let them know how you're feeling and to explore some more options sounds like a really good idea.

You could also check out our Find a mental health professional page, here. There's a link to the directories you could check to see if there are any other psychiatrists in the area you could get in touch with. 

If you feel like you would benefit from talking about this more, we are here for you on 1300 22 4646 or via out webchat.

Thanks for sharing this, Sour-Marshmallow, we think it's such a good move and a really valuable discussion. 

Kind regards, 

Sophie M

[quirkywords]

Sour marshmallow welcome to the forum and thank you for your honest Post Sophie has giving you some helpful suggestions must be so hard to have severe social anxiety because it affects all parts before of ones life we are listening to you and you are not alone

[Puglett]

Hello there,

As a fellow person with social anxiety, I would recommend considering the following to deal with the wait for an appointment and the fact that sometimes GPs are too busy to be able to research all the available options beyond a quick search in their medical liturature:

- Talking to a Pharmacist about recommended medications for social anxiety or getting your GP to phone a Pharmacist for medication support re effectiveness, drug interactions and side effects. 

- Reading professional consumer handouts for medications to bring this info to your GP appointment to discuss, this allows you to identify beneficial medications and which ones may have the least problematic side effects for you. Sometimes GPs are also a bit less knowledgeable about dosage and a dose that is too low or high can be problematic, so I would also recommend asking about dosage if you find a medication is not helping or has severe side effects.

- The Centre for Clinical Interventions in Western Australia has some wonderful social anxiety resources that can help you understand the maintaining factors and how to 'break free', you may like to ask your GP about these and if they feel they would be beneficial for you, they may be able to recommend other credible resources for psychological support such as apps.

- Almost forgot to mention, telehealth psychiatry may be an option to get an appointment faster until you can see someone face-to-face, for telehealth I found the wait was only 3 months.

Wishing you all the best on this journey through social anxiety, take care. x

[Dennis_H]

It is better for you to see a doctor so that you can be prescribed the right treatment and an accurate diagnosis, this is very important!

[Dennis_H]

Hmm, it seems to me that you need to first contact a psychologist so that he chooses the right treatment.  Recently, I started noticing strange symptoms, headaches, sudden attacks of aggression and anxiety. I started reading on the Internet what it could be and came across one site and there I read that most likely these are symptoms of an anxiety disorder. I immediately went to a specialist and, thanks to the treatment, the anxiety began to pass.