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can I cure social anxiety?

Discussion in 'General Support and Advice' started by markosss, Feb 11, 2015.

  1. markosss

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    Hi I have socian anxiety disorder since I remember myself.I searched about it on the internet and found that there is biological and enviromental factors that cause the disorder. My dad have social anxiety too and I was bullied when I was younger in school because I was shy and not into sports and things that boys do.that made me feeleven worse about myself. Now I wonder if there is any way to cure it without help from a proffesional( I cant visit one because of my anxiety). I have noticed that I am more confident and can more easily talk to strangers when im with my friends or family. Is there any medicine I can take to cure it? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
     
  2. TheStormInside

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    Some medications will help alleviate anxiety, but they aren't quite a "cure" for it, and you'd probably be better served in behavioral therapy. Another name for social anxiety disorder is "social phobia" and like with many phobias one of the major treatments is "exposure therapy." This is something you could practice on your own, but if your anxiety is very bad it would probably help you to seek a professional who can coach you through it and push you, as well. The basic idea is to expose yourself to more social events or interaction so that you will start to realize that there is nothing to really fear. Ideally you'd start with very safe situations or with some support, like having your friends there with you when you go somewhere and talk to someone new. Then you'd step it up and the next time try to talk to someone new without your friends being there. The idea is that you build up your confidence step by step as you retrain yourself to learn that you don't need to be afraid.
     
  3. musicman1982

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    Hi markosss,

    I recently overcame anxiety, so I can relate to your story. My own anxiety was down to numerous past events and during a specific time in July last year. Sadly, my anxiety came out physically by me fainting on a train. When I saw the doctor, I had to see the same one twice, the first time I saw her she was concerned that I might have a heart problem, so I had four heart tests. Greatly, I ended up being fine and the second time I ended up developing positional vertigo and it was all through stress and now my positional vertigo is cured.

    Through all of that I was seeing more doctors about the panic attacks I was having and thinking that I could get medication. When I have spoken about this to doctors they rightly said "No." They gave very good reasons why, one of them was they are highly addictive and if I said if I felt I wasn't aware of my emotions, crying and not why to wanting to kill myself, that's when they would give it to me. But because I had very high normal anxiety, they would not give it me, after a very lengthy discussion with the last doctor, I realised that it would be a very bad idea, if I was taking pills for my anxiety. In all probability I am not a specialist of any kind, I'm saying this through experience that from what was said to me that they will not give medicene to anyone, they have to feel that if you could handle your anxiety or not. I can't professional opinion, but this is what has been said to me.

    If you are still thinking about wanting to take pills. I know someone quite close to me, who is taking pills now for their anxiety for different reasons to mine. The factors you'll have to take in that pills for anxiety, depression or whatever react differently to each person and may have different side effects, ranging from normal to extremely rate. The person I know is going through a first set of pills and they have not worked very well and this person showing very extreme side effects, so you have to take into account that your behaviour might change and there is a gurantee that they might not work till you find pills that will, because you have to wait two weeks for them to work and if they don't you have to slowly come off again and that will take another two weeks to do so.

    With me, how I overcame it I used an exercise that I saw in a youtube video, type in 'fun with anxiety' I found a guy who was being alittle crude in this video, but he made sense when talking about anxiety. The guy's name is Elliot and he does some sort of fitness channel. I am getting extremely tried now, if you any questions please don't hesitate to ask me anything and I hope this was useful?
     
  4. markosss

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    Thanks a lot both of you for your answers! (*hug*) today I was able to expose my self to a very difiult situatiin and I managed finr. My heart was racing but after I started talking I felt much better and everything went well :wink: and wish you the best!!!