Venting CTB due to social anxiety

[deathenvoy]

I am having severe social anxiety most of my life. Most of my life I suppressed my needs for interaction with other people and I focused on programming - my career of choice. Unfortunately such solitary lifestyle was not sustainable. I cannot ignore my needs any longer. But my social phobia prevents me from fulfilling those needs. I feel trapped in prison of my mind which I can only escape by CTB. I tried many different medications (only benzo helps - which could be only short term solution), I tried group therapy, individual therapy, more exposure to people. Nothing works and my social phobia has never been worse. I cannot even work because I am afraid of my coworkers and I cannot focus on my job.
At the same time I am paralyzed by fear when I am left alone. I feel like dying then. I had my suicide attempt when I broke up with my first and only girlfriend, when I was left alone. So I cannot be with people and I cannot exist without them. It is hell I can only escape by CTB :( Suicide is permanent solution to my permanent problem.

 

[sillyusername69]

Are you okay with online friends?

 

[deathenvoy]

Are you okay with online friends?

Not really :( I need physical presence of people I know that are close to me. But in same time I am too afraid of someone new.

 

[Orin]

I am having severe social anxiety most of my life. Most of my life I suppressed my needs for interaction with other people and I focused on programming - my career of choice. Unfortunately such solitary lifestyle was not sustainable. I cannot ignore my needs any longer. But my social phobia prevents me from fulfilling those needs. I feel trapped in prison of my mind which I can only escape by CTB. I tried many different medications (only benzo helps - which could be only short term solution), I tried group therapy, individual therapy, more exposure to people. Nothing works and my social phobia has never been worse. I cannot even work because I am afraid of my coworkers and I cannot focus on my job.
At the same time I am paralyzed by fear when I am left alone. I feel like dying then. I had my suicide attempt when I broke up with my first and only girlfriend, when I was left alone. So I cannot be with people and I cannot exist without them. It is hell I can only escape by CTB :( Suicide is permanent solution to my permanent problem.

I feel your pain. When i'm home alone i too feel that gut-wrenching emptiness. I have social anxiety too, maybe even agoraphobia.

 

[Mljonzy]

Damn anxiety is an absolute killer i got it too the worse part about it for me is people think it's funny but we all know these people would cry if it was them.

 

[not_a_robot]

I feel your pain. When i'm home alone i too feel that gut-wrenching emptiness. I have social anxiety too, maybe even agoraphobia.

I have both too. I fill the emptiness with self love and drugs and all the comedy I can find (usually dvds and podcasts). It's not perfect but artificial happiness is better than constant misery.
I don't feel "good", exactly, but I feel pretty good about being alone.
I wish it was something I could transfer to other people so they wouldn't feel so horrible and lonely.
(I would probably be dead in a week without marijuana).

 

[Rollo]

I tried group therapy, individual therapy, more exposure to people. Nothing works and my social phobia has never been worse. It is hell I can only escape by CTB :( Suicide is permanent solution to my permanent problem.

See the thing is when it comes to psychological issues such as fear, especially social fear, the only thing that can trully work is drugs - you take it and get the result. In fact in this sense alcohol delivers the most striking short-term result - before drink you were too uptight to sing in the shower, after the drink you sing in the streets.

However when it comes to solution through some action - the only action worth taking is a deep, brutally honest self-conversation about what's going on, why it's going on and which direction to move into. And suicide here is not the only direction. As far as therapy goes - the only way it can actually "work" is if it induces some re-evaluation of basic existential choices. However it's not really necessary for such a re-evaluation and usually not even sufficient for such a purpose.

 

[TimeToDie]

Social phobia is my biggest problem. I'm totally disabled by it, and I have not worked nor gone to school since college graduation 24 years ago. For me even benzos don't help. From 2003-2009 I was on 8-10 mg of Xanax a day. Xanax (and other benzos) never worked, but I was desperate and took it clinging to the fantasy that it must be doing something. I spent a few years on MAOIs -- Nardil & Parnate -- too and they also failed despite Nardil being the "gold standard" of social phobia treatment. I've never done therapy since when you have extreme social phobia you most certainly don't want to chat with a therapist.

I used to drink to cope with my anxiety but after a while alcohol lost it's effect so I stopped that early this year. I've tried pot to calm me. Pot was actually suggested to me by a former psychiatrist when I asked him what he would do in my situation. Pot isn't legal in my state and he failed to include that advice in his session notes. When your doc suggests pot that would mean that he's all out a pharmaceutical drug ideas.

Dr. Smoke Pot happened to be an addiction specialist who treated junkies with Suboxone. Desperately wanting something to improve my mood I asked him for Subutex but he refused to give it to me since it's reserved only for folks who are blow random dudes in a dark alley to finance their heroin addiction. How fair is that?