Back to Social Anxiety "Life"

After a couple of months I am back to the Social Anxiety Blog, I traveled to my country to visit family and some friends. It certainly felt good to be home for a while, I can say that the social fear left me during those days, except for one time when I had dinner with my brother and a couple of his friends. As soon as I found out that we were having dinner with his friends, my friend the Anxiety showed up.

It was amazing to have that feeling again after a couple of weeks of zero anxiety; it reminded me again how vulnerable I was. For some reason I felt that the people sitting with us at the table meant danger and a menace to my life and so the symptoms began.

One of the most common symptoms I experience is the loss of my voice, I can’t talk, yes I mean it literally, I just can’t talk, is like being paralyzed, I start panicking, my heart starts beating faster, feel like I don’t have enough air, it’s just a terrible feeling of fear, that is the correct word, the biggest fear. So any ways I finally got in control and was fairly able to control myself after a while and got to pronounce a few sentences, I stayed with them for a long half hour. After that I decided to leave, it was a great relieve to get out of there.

After leaving the restaurant, even though it was a relief, I started thinking about how people at the table saw me, how they noticed my panic and fear, and so on… So my self esteem went down and I started criticizing myself for acting in such “immature way”.

Well any ways that was the only experience of anxiety I had during my trip. The rest of the time was pleasant and full of joy and warmth and love that I received from my family.

Now I’m back to my regular life, is good go be here again, and continue visiting my friend’s blogs: Dave: Working through social anxiety, Aaron, Ryan, Shawn at Anxious Living, and Drew at Shy and Quiet. Okay, I have a lot of reading to catch up with.

Anxiety Crisis: Family and Friends Visiting

A cousin and an old friend of mine came over to stay with me for a period of time. My cousin is starting a new business in the city and ask me if he could stay for a period of time (couple of months maybe), and so my friend, she comes from another country and decided to come over to "start a new life", that is when we think we can run away from ourselves, I mean, some times we think we can go some where else and things will change, like Confucious said: "No matter where you go, you'll still be there".

I have been living alone for quite a period of time in my life now, I am used to it, and I enjoy it, so having people at my house now has created some type of an anxiety crisis. Most of all it has to do with my friend, she came over in some type of a crisis too, the difference is that I am many steps away from her: I have my own place, I have a job, I take care of myself, I exercise, I have a healthy lifestyle, I am in therapy every week, I have projects, I have a life...

My friend is just going to start her own process, I wanted to help her because in a way I feel she did it with me when I needed it, so now is the time for me to try to help her. But this has created a crisis in me, she has been here with me for a few days now and she just gets on my nerves. I am offering a free place to stay, free meals, and the basic things you need in life, but she doesn’t show any sign of doing anything for her life, she has to start to look for a job, that is the most important thing right now, but I don’t see her doing it, or at least to start preparing herself for the process, she has to start looking at newspapers, classifieds, asking questions about it, etc. But all she does is watch TV and chat on the Internet.

That has me very anxious, I just don’t know how to handle the situation, even though I try to understand her crisis and what she is going through right now.

So I am trying to be patient and calm myself down, wait for a few more days and see if she has a positive reaction and starts doing what she has to do, else I am not going to stand for this anymore, I will sit down with her and talk about the situation with her and how it is affecting my own life.