Social Anxiety

[robin]

I suffer from social anxiety. I was always a shy child growing but was bullied at school from the primary school up into the secondary schools as well. I moved schools several times to avoid the bullying, reported it to the headmaster and so on and so forth but it continued anyway. I even tried for many years to change myself to make myself more acceptable to my peers but couldn’t become someone other than who I was so the attempts at changing always inevitably failed. At one point I changed myself so much I became confused about whom I was.

These days I have social anxiety, rather bad social anxiety to point I rarely even go out of the house now. I feel that my social anxiety today stems from my shyness and experiences at school. What I learned back then was that no matter what I do people will dislike me, and when people dislike you they will inevitably be nasty towards you. Now I can cope with not being liked (although I’m very lonely at the moment as i rarely have company because I don’t leave the house), especially by the masses, as I’m the type that prefers one or two good friends to many anyway, but the nastiness is a different matter. I’m very sensitive, and I cant really take the nastiness. Vie tried to toughen myself up and become less sensitive but I just cant manage it. Even if I push a hurt out of my conscious mind when I’m awake, it disturbs from my sleep and wakes me up in the middle of the night instead. Either that or I get horrible nightmares from it.
I’m so isolated these days I’m not sure if my view point stated above is a correct one (that when people dislike you they will be nasty and that most people will dislike me), I’m sure in my logical mind it cant be true of everyone, but the fact that after leaving school I experienced bullying at work from a supervisor compounded the concept in my mind. Everything that has happened to me in my adult life has reinforced that belief no matter how many times I’ve tried to shift it. These days I no longer know how to mix or make friends; I’ve been isolated for so long, I have literally forgotten how to do it.
I don’t have a problem with my family relationships, and I’ve been able to form romantic relationships in the past, so I don’t think I have a problem forming relationships parse, it just seems to be social ones due to my social anxiety. What happened at school ripped my confidence to shreds and I’ve never really ever been able to restore it completely. Now I feel what is the point of mixing, people wont like me anyway and will only be nasty towards me anyway. Even if I’m in a room with someone who dislikes me I can feel that there hostility towards me even if they don’t open their mouth.

There are one or two people I have met that seemed to like me, but I don’t really know how to respond to that now and I worry that I will do something stupid and eventually they will change their mind and not like me anyway.
How accurate is my perspective in this matter? How can I learn to mix again? And if I do how can I shield myself from getting hurt when imp so damned sensitive? My impulse is to further isolate myself and give up on trying to mix entirely but that doesn’t solve my loneliness.

[pope]

I feel like you stole an entry out of my diary. Except I don’t have a healthy relationship with my family, and it does affect my personal relationships. It’s a hard world out there. I shed some light to my np about my perceptions and she said that she's going to work with me. I’m not sure what she meant, but it gives me hope.

[woong]

I can totally relate to your experiences, as I have had similar experiences myself. I was not a popular kid and was bullied from day care to high school, in unit I got better treatment, but that was also because I shied away from most people and just hid myself, didn’t really talk and never opened up too much. The few times I dared open up to people it has mostly turned out to be a mistake, I do have some wonderful people in my life without whom I would be totally lost, so it hasn’t all been bad, but it has been mostly not good.
I do go outside and such, so maybe I’m a little different from you that way, but I can certainly relate to the feeling that no one likes you or that when you meet someone new they’re not going to like you and such, I have that same feeling.
I don’t think it’s easy, but I just wanted you to know that you’re not alone. I think maybe counseling would help and I also think that you should try to find someone that can help you learn about being social again without being afraid, I don’t know if this exists in UK but where I am there are people who work for the community, they come to your house and hang out with you or they take you out to do things like shopping or going to a cafe and such, they’re like friends, but the difference is its their job to do this, to help people with different mental health issues be social and active in some way or other in society.

[aeunjoo]

I too suffer from anxiety. I tend to be a "mind reader" and I constantly worry whether people like me or not, and worry about what they think of me. I have come to the point where I know that some people won't like I’m OK and me with that. I think about the people I work with and my family and I don't like everyone so I shouldn't expect everyone to like me! Be careful not to be a mind reader.
You have had some terrible experiences in your life, but please don't give up your search for relationships.