existential and social anxiety - can you relate?

[swtpotato]

hi everyone,

I was posting on the welcome and orientation section but thought I should move things here as it's more on-topic.

So my mental health story: I have always been really introverted and spacey kinda kid but also very optimistic and idealistic. I grew up being really self-conscious and felt like there was something wrong with me but was pretty good at ignoring it.
I had this bad lsd trip (1.5yrs ago) which blew all of my insecurities way out of proportion. I had all this derealisation and depersonalisation and severe social anxiety which led me to develop IBS and chronic fatigue. I was obsessed with the concept of identity and meaning and thought it was impossible to truly connect with other people.

[startingnew]

Hi Em


im glad what ive written here as helped you.


Anxiety in istelf can be really confusing. Its not just something as simple as oh I have a test tomorrow and im nervous for it. These types of anxieites like to try and over run us with irrelevant worries but to us they are real. Because anxiety isnt a physical thing that you can see, its hard to understand and accept as well as getting other to understand how your feeling.


A lot of people inlcuding myself havent had or have lsot their sense of identity. Its like someone saying your name and your respond because thats all youve known but take the name away and leave you to your own self most of us will take a look and go who am I?


Thats ok you dont have to completley push yourself to the extent of panic attacks but keeping up with talking to people will help to ease your fears and eventually youll become more confident in doing this. Its not an overnight fix but by taking the right steps in recovery you can get better.


You know what.. Ive done exactly what you have said. Ive written down things that I havent been able to say out loud or sounds better on paper and handed it to my psychologist. They can work with this and really isnt an unuusal thing. Quite common really.

[swtpotato]

Hi startingnew,

It is confusing. Also talking about it here and reading other's experiences is helping to normalise it all more than ever before. I learnt growing up that if you felt anxious or depressed it was your own responsibility to go deal with it first before coming to others. We didn't talk about emotions at all, and my parent's thought if you talked about it it was just needlessly complaining about things. I'm sure plenty of people here relate to that. I didn't realise this wasn't healthy until I went to therapy.

I know plenty of people with mental health issues and we support each other but none of them have had any problems with social anxiety. I have only told one person about that weird feeling and they didn't understand at all, so I had no idea if it was a common feeling in depression/anxiety. I'm getting closer to accepting it, esp with this forum, though I still have plenty of angry and shameful feelings towards myself for letting it get like that - will improve with time.

I think just talking it out here will really help me stop myself from internalising all of these feelings like I am used to doing.

Thanks

Em

[Guest_1055]

Oh wow Em, you experience similar things in your life. I have never met anyone on this forum that had or has the same things. Oh wow. I too have done the Myers Briggs personality test along with a few other sorts....all to try and discover who I am. I believe I am the same personality type as you. There is a thread in here about that test, I am going to search for it.

I grew up in an non emotional home, emotions and feelings were something to push down inside yourself . Even crying was seen as something that was uncomfortable. It was this unseen thing that emotions were not expressed.

Are you very observant as well, like your surroundings around you? I also have mild anxiety or fear in social situations.

It is great you are taking about all this.

shell xx

[swtpotato]

That is what my home was like too - the only emotions we really expressed were anger and irritability. I love my family and I know they love me they just seem to deal with emotions differently to me.

What I think happened is that I just have a lot of emotions that I buried and internalised inside me - which led to a lot of chronic health issues (IBS and chronic fatigue) which after lots of work on myself to open up with people and family it has turned into more normal depression I think which is interesting.

That's so interesting that we fit into the same personality type and have similar presentations of mental illness, I wonder how much they are related.

Yes definitely. But not in a very useful way. I feel like I take in everything at once but process things in the back of my mind, I am overwhelmed easily by lots of things going on at once and find it difficult to focus on what people are saying, like I can't filter things out very well. So socialising with lots of people at once always just seemed to difficult and not interesting enough for me to join in when I find it more enjoyable to just observe. But then I start to feel I am not a true participant in life.

I feel like I question things a lot more than other people, I don't understand how people are so out of touch with their emotions, I always want to know how they are feeling, what they are learning, what has changed their perspective on things. Understanding myself and others is very important to me.

A challenge for me that I want to work on is trying to experience things just for the sake of experiencing, without reflecting or analysing it. I think meditation will help a lot.

Do you relate to this Shelley?

Em

[Pysis]

Hi em hi shelly

wow you two sound very much like me it's really wierd. I have grown up being told that we keep our emotions hidden and we can't show them becuase it's a sign of weakness and crying God don't even think about it. I stuffed my emotions down for years and I ended up very angry all the time and I ended up sick a lot with stomach issues.

I get overwhelmed extreamly easily like I can't eat at restaurants or be in really busy places becuase of the noise and certain lights just make me dizzy. I can't filter out background noise either so I have to concentrate really hard to listen to someone if there is background noise do if I'm at a restaurant I can't have a conversation at all.

I have always questioned things and still fo or I do things differntly to what people expect and come up with completely differnt point of veiws. I'm very much the same em I am always interested in how other people are feeling and viewing the world, yeah understanding as much about myself and other people is somthing that's very important to me. I've found it hard to let people in over the years but once I do and I make that connection with them I can always tell how they are feeling and what's going through their heads like I'm unintentionally analysing their behaviour somewhere in the back of my mind.

thinking of you

Nath

[Guest_1055]

Mmm yes I too had many emotions and feelings buried deep within my heart. As that was what was taught when growing up. Then a bit later on in my early twenties they exploded. Anger was a big emotion that came out. This one was scary one for me, as I did not like feeling it. In fact I needed to learn what all the emotions were called. There was no anger or irritability in my family. Nothing at all.

Mm about the socialising ... I may be a little different there to you. I hate small talk, can feel awkward and also sense other people's awkardness . I seem to pick up on people's feelings sometimes more then what they are saying in words. Or even the atmosphere of a room. I am extremely a feeling person and highly emotional.

About being a participant in life... yes I sometimes feel like a spectator just watching everybody else. I think that is when you feel like you are behind the wall or in that bubble . You can see others, maybe it is the connect thing again.

I am not sure about you but when I do feel a connectness it would be an attached feeling...like a feeling/ emotion connection. Except with you, as it feels a bit logical as well. There is something happening in the mind.

I find it a challenge to focus on things and can become quite scattered or side tracked. Like you I am also a dreamer.

Okay so right now my brain is getting a bit confused and all over the place. So I will end this post now.

And have you ever read the 5 love languages book, that was helpful to me. I will talk more, when my head is a bit clearer.

Shell xx

[Guest_1055]

It does feel a bit weird doesn't Nath?

Yes come to think of it, I would do that sort of thing in a restaurant as well. It is like you are so tuned into your surroundings. I would notice everything around me. I would even notice the hardness of the seat I am sitting on. The musty smell in the air. Whatever... even a small ant crawling along the table. Others that I am with may be so focused on what they eating, or focused on talking.

Shell

[swtpotato]

Yes Shelley I hate that I can sense other people's awkwardness and anxiety, I start to feel it just as much as them. After being around people for too long I feel like I have to centre myself and separate what other people believe and feel and what I do, otherwise I get too caught up in pleasing or trying to be like others I think.

For e.g. my housemate gets very stressed a lot of the time, and I feel it so much and I want to help so much like I used to. we used to kinda date but not really also, like friends with added benefits but I was reallyy into him and I know more about what he has been going through than anyone else and him with me. Since I was depressed at the time and didn't feel like I had any personality myself I felt like I took on a lot of his likes/dislikes, opinions, feelings. He hid all of his emotions from others but I could feel when he was lying, when he felt uneasy or uncomfortable or depressed.

I think I became a little obsessed, like I would almost feel high just being around him because his energy was so intense and positive a lot of the time. But we also weren't very compatible and I felt worse about myself around him as I idealised him so much...

Anyway this was a weird experience as I thought I was asexual or even aromantic before I met him and suddenly had all of these feelings.

When I moved back to the city (after going home to recover) he started to completely blank me. He is cold to me a lot of the time, we don't talk anymore. Like it was nothing, and I know he is oblivious to how bad it makes me feel. I miss him a lot but sometimes that just happens I guess. I am now more free to be myself again and think about my own needs.

This has just been on my mind and is affecting me a lot so I wanted to talk about it. When people feel bad around me I am trying to remind myself: that is not mine. they don't want or need me to fix it. they are responsible for themselves.

Bit of a ramble again sorry but it helps me to process it.

[Pysis]

Yeah it dose I kind of thought I was the only person that was like this but apparently not.

yeah I notice everything cobwebs, patterns on the seat, the music playing, where the lights are hung and how they throw shadows, everything pretty much.

im a bit like you when I have a connection with someone it is on a emotion level and it is a deep conection there is some intellectual aspect that comes into it but it's more how they make me feel some people just make me uneasy like they have a differnt energy about them, so i don't tend to make friends easy becuase I need to form that conection and learn them I guess. And yeah I hate small talk I can have deep meaningful conversations all day long but stuff like talking about the weather or politics and stuff I just can't handle. And yeah I'm the same someone can say their fine for instance but I can instantly tell they arnt or sometimes I know the reason why people feel a certain way before they even do and once I explain why I think they feel that way they completely agree with me and are amazed that I knew that.

thinking of you

Nath

[swtpotato]

hey guys,

I tried to post something before but it doesn't look like it has worked, I'll wait a bit longer to see.

Just wanted to say I know exactly what you both mean and have had similar experiences.

I always found it so strange how easily some people made friends, or more how easily some people were attracted to others - I'd be like, but you don't know anything about them??? How could they be attracted to you? Not sure if this is a different thing but I have always needed to have a strong emotional connection with someone before I was comfortable or attracted. It is pretty interesting.

Nath I get what you mean but I also think you are a lot more sensitive to these things then I am, it just comes across that way. It sounds like you are really intuitive.

Humans have this part of the brain that automatically mimics what other people are feeling or doing. In some people this is much stronger than in others so that they can feel other people's emotions as if they were their own.