Lost Motivation To Things. Depressed. Need Advice.

Hello,

This will be a long letter.

This is my story. I have always been a quiet person. I was very close to my mother after my father died when I was very young. I guess my mother always was a bit over protective over me. As long as i can remember i have never liked attention or that people look at me. When i was little kid i always become angry when anyone looked at me at the dinner table. Making sure that no one in the family would make eye contact with me. And i was always fighting with my little sister. Being in control and deciding what she can do and not do. I always wanted things in my way. And i was a perfectionist. Making sure that things were in the right spot and order. I have always had a few good friends around me and im happy with that. Never liked too many people around me. I was shy in school. Never raising my hand and keeping quiet. I was always nervous in the mornings when going to school.

I always wished that we never would have any lessons that had to make me talk or be in the center of my attention. However when i grew older i started to realize that this was just a normal shyness. I started searching the internet. And found that my symptoms actually had a name. And it was called Social Phobia. I have been known this since i was 15 now. I was too afraid to to anything or to seek any help or to tell my parents. I had especially hard time getting to know new friends and people more in depth and not just on the surface. Years went and between 18-22 i had a period where i really felt everything was a struggle. While friends started to get into relationships and dating i was still anxious and insecure of meeting girls. I shut myself down and never dared to ask any girl out. Or do date any. I have been aware of this my all life. And the anxiety has grown. I have used internet a lot meet new people all my life. There I can be myself and make connections and people like me. But when I meet up with people I cant be nowhere near of anything of the picture I painted up of myself on the internet. I become paralyzed, empty in my head and full of worries,

I feel uncomfortable going into crowded places, parties, nightclubs, anything that can point the attention to me. I cant do stuff when people are watching me. I cant eat lunch at work with other people etc.

I always been a thinker. Thinking and worrying about everything. This is something i wish i could live without. Im over analyzing everything and making sure that everything is control. When i went in school i always checked around my environment that nobody is looking at me. This has made me a perfectionist. From Social Anxiety this has lead to periods of anxiety and depression.

Mostly because i never had taken the oppurtunites to take the changes which i have got. Job offers. to go on a date , build relationships and make bonds with new pople. Especially intimate relationships with girls. I have also lost friends, or friends have got tired of me, since i have kept telling them that we are going to meet up, making plans but nothing really happens. I have lost connections etc. I have been closed and unable to open up for even my closest friends. It can take forever to learn to know me. im hiding facts and some see me as mysterious.

So i have shut myself down internally and emotionally several times in the past. Not caring about anything or what people say or do for me or even caring about people or friends around me at all. Just having a neutral feeling for everything. Friends has often told me that i cant take criticism , that im a perfectionist, that i talk more than i do stuff, When people want to know me more personal or when I get personal questions I often just use jokes to get the focus away from the questions.

Im anxious to try new things, that im not letting myself outside the box. Im constantly living around my own centre, self centered. Some people have called me egocentric. Some have even told me the first impression of me is that im arrogant or cold. Which im not. I have hard time focusing and remembering what people say to me because im so focused about how i look, or if my face expressions are good enough, or if there is anything strange they notice about me. I have especially hard time looking people straight in the eyes.

When i was younger i got angry when people stare at me, I look angry people say often even if im not. This is my neutral face. I get tense. I often play cool in front of new people. When I walk in the public I often think im famous or special. It’s automatic response i do to handle the attention. .Some kind of safe thinking. That will make the attention away for a bit and its easier to handle that people look. Recently when I get asked out for any activity with friends and new people I just come up with an excuse to not attend. Since I know I wont be able to be myself, and relaxed. Im thinking what to say all the time. If what I said sounded right. Im worrying days or weeks before any social situation. Of what to say. I have a "what if" thinking all the time. When someone talk with me I often don’t know what to say back. I just agree or just say boring things. After meetings with people I often think back and analyze the conversations. and i only become somewhat normal when i drink alcohol. but the problem when im drink is that im still thinking about what to say, how to feel relaxed, have a normal conversation. When I think back most of my social situations where I have had most fun and where I have been myself more is when it has been alcohol involved. I have been more spontaneous, funny and I have been able to show myself more. I even get more motivated, happy etc. I only become somewhat normal when i drink alcohol. but the problem when im drink is that im still thinking about what to say, how to feel relaxed, have a normal conversation. But I realized this is not the way. The past years for every weekend there has been alcohol involved on the weekends. And I have become more and more depressed.


Im want to try new things but im anxious of what could go wrong. I like everything planned before anything happens. I want to make sure that everything is in control.

I heard from people that im defensive and don’t like criticism. And that im a bad listener. Only interested in only talking about my interests or what concerns me. Not showing interest towards other people. That is true. I get defensive when I get criticized. And sometimes also angry. I also have hard time showing interest in what other people say, I always act like what I say is the most important.

The strange thing is that i always have been good in getting to know people, getting the first contact is easy, but developing it deeper is where is is harder, i start to think too much and become self centered, im angry, and i have imploded inside, that i can but my negative thinking is in the way. People around me know me as a positive, outgoing, humorous person. But deep inside I feel lost and with anxiety. I never feel I have anything to say in a conversation. I have hard time trusting people, when people want to do anything for me I always become paranoid. Looking for signs that this person is trying to manipulate me. Im always suspicious of others.

Im comparing myself to others, and i always think in social situations that how come that my friends can talk so easily to people, that this is what i could do or be, but i cant somehow.I feel like sometimes i havent been myself, with my own thoughts, that im not connected to what i really am or think. I have a black and white thinking. All or nothing. Either I get what I want or I wont be satisfied with only getting avarage. There is no middle ground.

I cant seem to live in the present. I can still think of small situations that happened 10 years ago. I feel like I need to do something , to achieve something in order to become social. When i have achieved anything and im happy then i usally become more social. Lately I have getting more depressed and shut up in my own world. I think that nobody understands me and I have got more isolated in my own thoughts. Shutting people and the world out. Im not interested in anything emotionally. Im not affected by anything. I don’t care what people say i or just got bored by people easily. i feel like i often are disconnected from the world, too much in my own toughts, in my dream world, in the past. I cant take on new things, Im uninterested in anything new. I have been angry and frustrated. So I have gave up and now im just waiting for stuff to happen. Rather than taking part and making things happen myself. Im not emotionally affected by anything anymore.

I have a passion and talent for dancing and music and sports. But as soon as I have been close to getting to success I have given up. I have lived in some kind of paradox state of mind. Which I have lived with all my life. Mainly due to my anxiety, worrying and social anxiety. I cant dance since then I have to be in public and I cant show my feelings and talents. Afraid of being watched. I constantly think and analyze of my past. Of what could have happened if I was going to go all the way. I regret it. And I cant let it go. Sometimes I have obsessive thoughts of my past which I cant let go of. Over the years im always giving up when im close to getting where I want. It’s the feeling of almost being there I have been living with. The feeling has somehow pleased me. But then you realize nothing will happen .

At one point I realized I just accepted my anxiety and thought that “one day it will probably happen, I will get what I want” but it still has not. Now im 29 and have all kinds of anxiety. That I haven’t managed to get where I want and i look at my friends and people around me doing all kinds of stuff all the time and getting somewhere in life. Building relationships and careers. I think I deserve more with my personality and talents, but I cant go all the way due to anxiety. My humour and toughts have become more dark and weird. In the beginning of this year I started to feel dizziness and thought it was something serious. So I started to go to a doctor to make all kinds of health checkups. X-ray, blood tests, stomach tests etc. But everything came back negative. I became more destructive. At one point I tougt I was going to die. So I accepted this fate for no reason. I have also got swallowing difficulties and sleep problems. So if anyone have any advice or can relate to my story then please advice.

Thanx for the reply. I actually wrote a letter to a psychologist and i have seen her a few times. I have not felt any big help but this is because i have not expressed my deepest inner thoughts yet. Im afraid to do this but i have to let this go. I also got a time trough my psychologist to a psychiatrist who prescribed me medicine which i took for over 2 months but it really did not help more than taking away the physical symptoms. It was a tranquilizer. The psychologist knows me story in full but the psychiatrist i only met once when she prescribe the medicine and told me i can also continue seeing her if i want. I only shortly described my problems.

Im going to write a follow up to my first post here. It’s a mixture of both. Depression and Social Anxiety. As I remember I never liked people looking at me. I got angry as a child. I am obsessed with my looks, fore example if my hair looks good etc. Even if I get approved that it does. I also have problem to listen to people while looking them in the eyes during a conversion because this makes me very self centered and I begin to think if my lips are moving strangely or if my face looks too stiff. This makes people think im a bad listener and im egocentric.


I have been a big daydreamer all my life. I live in fantasies where I fantasize about dream scenarios in life, about success, women I never got due to my social anxiety but where I built up a fantasy around on how it could look like. People say I can bee too paranoid sometimes, this is because I don’t trust people and therefore I take steps back when someone is trying to get close to me.


When someone gets interested in me I become very shut down. Im also very self critical. I have a all or nothing thinking. Looking back I think I have had anxiety all my life. I have always thinking of the past and I have for some reasons not being able to live in the present. I suspect I have obsessive thinking since I think about things from my childhood, what people said, or just people or happenings that has no relevance to the present. I have used the internet to build connections with friends and girls.


There I have no problems at all to have conversations, say what I feel . Internet dating has never been a problem for me. It is just that I have not been able to meet up with girls since my fears and symptoms of social anxiety his me. I doubt of myself a lot. Even if people say im good enough, im talented enough. I have this perfectionist thinking and I don’t like criticism.I get very defensive then. I want everything to be right at once. Im not sure if this is a part of social anxiety but I have never taken part of any side when there is an argument or if someone asks for an opinion. Im just neutral and blank in my head.

Then when someone says something or brings up his opinion I think that “wait I could have said that”. I feel that this all life of daydreaming and fantasizing is a symptom of ADD. People have told me im a * if this is a sign of ADD or short attention. I always think my jokes are the funniest and what I say. I have hard time remembering things since im so up in the clouds. I have always been a creative person and producing music has been a big part of life. When I socialize with new people or friends I constantly think of things from the past and I cant be in the moment.


Seems I cant form new toughts at all or have any conversations in the present. I hate taking advice from others, I am very stubborn and sometimes I can get angry if someone points something out to me or suggest me anything. I just tell them that everything is fine as it is and I don’t need that. I have recently opened up for my family more. Told things they did not knew about.

Currently everything has become worse and my obsessive thinking about past, career and women and lost love. I cant recognize myself and I don’t have energy to meet up with friends or anyone. I feel apathic. People have told me that im more quieter than usual or that im so quiet but I just don’t care when they make such remarks.

I don’t feel affected. I cant feel emotions. Maybe it is because I never had a relationship with a women that has made me feel like this. I wake up same time ever night sometimes and I dream a lot. I put down my big hobbies in life slowly, It has been harder to go on with no love. This social anxiety and obsessive thinking is stopping me of be in the present with people. Before a social meeting I feel good and imagine in my head how I will be. When the situation arrives I get blank in my head, forget things I should say. And after the social situation I remember what I have should said or done. Im usaly more open if the other person is taking initiative. Sometimes same thoughts , music gets stuck in my head for weeks. I even tell the same jokes or say the same things. I am very nice to other people, helping them. But when someone asks how I feel I just say that I feel great. And deep inside i feel that it is not what I feel.

Hi Socarp,

the key to have profressional work with and for you is 100% honesty, maybe not all at first and TIME.

It took years to get in the condition you are in. You can not expect a change or fix within a couple of weeks. The change comes from within yourself and you have to heal and learn how to do that. The profressional guides you in this journey.

A therapist is a good thing to have if a doctor is not what you are comfortable with. Keep the doc for meds and see the therapist for talking.

Stay strong
Peace
Trina