<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am a freshman at the University of Florida. Let me give you a bit of my background on my social ineptitudes. I started my freshman year of high school in a new school. I played football but couldn't make friends on my team, but I made one friend during the course of the year. My sophomore year I moved to a new school and stayed for two years. I had trouble again meeting people and making friends. I started hanging out with not-so-good kids from work but very seldomly. My senior year I moved out of state from Ohio to Florida. Again, I had trouble making friends and meeting people. Then I started at college and things weren't any better. I have a tremendous difficulty talking to people so much so that I try to avoid it whenever possible. I haven't made any friends at college and I feel like I don't belong here. I want to be able to meet people and make friends but I feel like I don't know how and whenever I am in a situation like that I lock up and just want to leave. I get stuck in my room and find it hard to leave no matter how much I want to. I go home as much as I can to avoid the loneliness of college. At home, I feel like a different person. I get so depressed sometimes I feel like just giving up. It seems so easy for everybody else to make friends. I tried to join a fraternity or club but I always find myself wanting to leave as soon as I get there. I really need help.</p>
<p>I can totally relate to what your going through. I used to be sooo nervous/awkward around other people.I'd suggest reading this book:</p>
<p>"When Panic Attacks" by David Burns</p>
<p>It sure has helped me alot with my social anxiety. I highly reccomend it!
Good Luck!!</p>
<p>Talk to yourbcollege counseling center. The problems you're having are common at college, and the counseling center can help you. </p>
<p>Part of what you're experiencing is lack of social skills, something that one can learn relatively easily with guidance from a counselor. It's important for you to learn these things while you're in college because afterward, you'll be in grad or professional school or in a work environment, and unless you've developed social skills, you will continue having the problems you're having now, and it will be even more difficult to make friends because you'll no longer be living on a college campus surrounded by people your age, and going to class with people with similar interests.</p>
<p>Also check out shyness.com and some of the old CC threads on shyness.</p>
<p>I have talked to my college guidance counselors and went to a group therapy session. But my problems were very different from theirs and I did not learn much. The counselor seemed to think my problems were not serious and did not do much to help. Has anyone had any previous experience with social anxiety disorder? If so, are our symptoms similar. Prople say just get over it but I am having a lot of trouble.</p>
<p>I can totally relate to what you are going through. First off, you already seem to be aware of how different your problem is...Over winter break I was diagnosed w/SAD after finally being able to articulate how different my "problem" was. The desire to go out and meet people but afraid of leaving home. The desire to sustain conversation with friends, but being so anxious I'd be counting down the seconds until the conversation ended. The fear of being watched while walking down the street...etc etc...But then, I got help. I continued my one on one therapy. I've been doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy every day for 3.5 months. I tried meds but decided against it after a while. And I've read VOLUMES of literature about SAD. My first advice to you is to visit this website:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/</a></p>
<p>STUDY every page of it. Read the testamonials. Browse every single link. Then get your hands on the audio series. Buy it if you have to. Maybe there's a way of downloading it (wink, wink) too. I'm telling you, it's only been 3.5 months and I've changed so much. PM me if you want to talk some more. To see a change you have to work every day. You are literally reprogramming the way you have viewed the world and reacted to situations for many years...</p>
<p>Finally, I'll say, be prepared for people not understanding what you're going through. You can't "get over" social anxiety disorder magically. If you could, you'd do it right? You also can’t go to a group therapy session with people who don’t have SAD and expect to succeed. Be prepared for misconceptions too. While Northstarmom's comments may be well intentioned, she's wrong about the "lack of social skills" and this has been supported by research. People with SAD underestimate their ability to socialize when really they're at par w/the rest of society. What happens is that b/c people with SAD exaggerate others’ abilities, diminish their own abilities and tend to be perfectionists, the anxiety starts flowing and the end result is consistent with "lack of social skills"--we're so nervous that we don't engage socially at all, engage socially but in an inhibited manner (not our real personality), and even report to others that we can't socialize when many times we did just fine. Of course the last view becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.</p>
<p>Thanks, pofresh for enlightening me and others.
bdizzle329, I wish you well as you continue to work on your social anxiety problem.</p>
<p>pofreshnyc: Thank you for your understanding and advice. I have heard about CBT through SAD websites. How do I tell my parents how serious this problem is? I have talked to them before and they said do college counseling but then seemed to forget about it. I know it will take a while to work through it but I really want to get help. Also, how old were you when you decided to get help? Are you a college student?</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm a college student. Like I said, I decided to get help about 3 months ago. I was 19 at the time and my symptoms had been going on for maybe 4 years. How do you tell your parents? By CONTINUING to tell them. I did it once and I experienced what you did. I did it twice...same thing. They didn't seem to fully understand. But I kept at it. I hammered on it. I decided that whenever I was around them, I'd talk about it. Slowly but surely, they started to understand how serious this was (and so did I also) and also how serious I was about getting better. Now they're behind me 100%, even sending me information about the condition after doing their own investigation.</p>
<p>pofreshnyc: I'm 19 too. So, how did you go about getting help? I read the material at that website. The website said that you need a specialist for SAD. Does that mean a regular psychologist would not be helpful?</p>