S.A.D. - Do you know someone who lives with this?

Social Anxiety Disorder

I have lived with this my entire life to the eighteenth degree. My life and lives of those around me have been affected by it. My mom was always having to make excuses for me being “rude”…. when the truth is I had mini panic attacks when I met someone new. Sometimes it just embarrassed her, other times it straight out pissed her off. She’s learned that when it comes to me, it’s best to not force the issue.

My friends, the only two friends I had my entire adolescence were family friends, daughters of friends my mom had since before I as born. And even they were not entirely unaffected by my disorder. Mercedes was a great friend, she would come all the way to my house on the city bus just to go with me somewhere if I needed to go, because she knew I was scared, and she never really questioned why… I miss her a lot.

When I moved out for the first time I was 19 or 20 years old. I would literally go without rather than walk the three blocks to the grocery store by myself. I doubt that even if at that time I’d had a vehicle that I would have went by myself. My live in boyfriend at the time became so fed up with my fears of doing anything on my own and driving that he eventually broke up with me. - I’m sure that wasn’t the ONLY reason, but in the end he did say he wanted someone more independent than I.

He and a lot of his family members could never understand why it was so hard for me to be open and openly friendly to everyone. Even though my job required me to deal with people on the phone and in person all day everyday, as soon as I got home I was a wreck when it came to dealing with people. I was fed up with it as much as he was. I wanted friends of my own, I wanted a life of my own...

When I was twenty three, I got this gusto I’d never quite had before, I moved to Texas all by myself. I got my own apartment, my first car, transferred my job. Everything was entirely and completely up to me. That was the first time I truly felt like Id had wings.

Then I met someone new and after a year of dating off and on, we moved in together. I was seven months pregnant with my first son. At first I carried those wings over into my new relationship. But we were both so happy that we loved doing things together. Eventually I became used to it, and without realizing it the Anxiety had settled in slowly, like a delayed poison. And Now here I set, and it seems that all that hard work I’d built up in my early twenties trying to be an independent woman has gone out the window. I know how to drive but the very thought sends me into a panic. I honestly would RATHER go to the store by myself in theory it’d be a lot easier for me… but the thought honestly makes me a little more than nauseated.

I don’t know how to deal with it, and I fear it is now affecting the relationship I have with this man who I adore. I think I place a lot on his shoulders at times. and for those of you with a disorder or who care for people with one, you know it’s hard to explain to them why you feel the way you do…. There really is no explanation for it.

It just is.