SAD2

How is it ever possible to feel "comfortable" or "natural" under these circumstances?
To the person with social anxiety, going to a job interview is pure torture: you know your excessive anxiety will give you away. You’ll look funny, you’ll be hesitant, maybe you’ll even blush, and you won’t be able to find the right words to answer all the questions. Maybe this is the worst part of all: You know that you are going to say the wrong thing. You just know it. It is especially frustrating because you know you could do the job well if you could just get past this terrifying and intimidating interview.
Welcome to the world of the socially anxious.
Social anxiety is the third largest psychological problem in the United States today. This type of anxiety affects 15 million Americans in any given year. Unlike some other psychological problems, social phobia is not well understood by the general public or by medical and mental health care professionals, such as doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, social workers, and counselors. In fact, people with social phobia are misdiagnosed almost 90% of the time. People coming to our anxiety clinic with diagnosable DSM-IV social phobia have been mislabeled "schizophrenic", "manic-depressive", "clinically depressed", "panic disordered", and "personality disordered", among other misdiagnoses.
Because few socially-anxious people have heard of their own problem, and have never seen it discussed on any of the television talk shows, they think they are the only ones in the whole world who have these terrible symptoms. Therefore, they must keep quiet about them. It would be awful if everyone realized how much anxiety they experienced in daily life. Unfortunately, without some kind of education, knowledge and treatment, social anxiety continues to wreak havoc throughout their lives. Adding to the dilemma, when a person with social phobia finally gets up the nerve to seek help, the chances that they can find it are very, very slim.

Making the situation more difficult is that social anxiety does not come and go like some other physical and psychological problems. If you have social phobia one day...you have it every day for the rest of your life, unless you receive the appropriate therapy.
The feelings I described to you at the beginning of the article are those of people with "generalized" social phobia. That is, these symptoms apply to most social events and functions in almost every area of life. I suffered from social phobia myself for twenty years before I ever saw the term or read about its symptoms in a book.
As with all problems, everyone with social anxiety has slightly different symptoms. Some people, for example, cannot write in public because they fear people are watching and their hand will shake. Others are very introverted and they find it too difficult to hold down a job. Still others have severe anxiety about eating or drinking in the presence of other people. Blushing, sweating, and "freezing" are other physiological symptoms. Some people with social anxiety feel that a certain part of their body (such as the face or neck) are particularly "strange looking" and vulnerable to being stared at.
One thing that all socially anxious people share is the knowledge that their thoughts and fears are basically irrational. That is, people with social anxiety know that others are really not critically judging or evaluating them all the time. They understand that people are not trying to embarrass or humiliate them. They realize that their thoughts and feelings are somewhat irrational. Yet, despite this rational knowledge, they still continue to feel that way.
It is these automatic "feelings" and thoughts that occur in social situations that must be met and conquered in therapy. Usually these feelings are tied to thoughts that are entwined in a vicious cycle in the persons’ mind.
How can social anxiety be treated? Many therapeutic methods have been studied, but cognitive-behavioral techniques have been shown to work the best. In fact, treatment of social anxiety through these cognitive-behavioral methods produces long-lasting, permanent relief from the anxiety-laden world of social anxiety.

A better life exists for all people who suffer from social anxiety.....
Social anxiety responds to relatively short-term therapy, depending on the severity of the condition. To overcome social anxiety, completion of one or more CBT therapy groups is essential. What socially-anxious people do not need is years and years of therapy. In fact, socially anxious people who are taught to "analyze" and "ruminate" over their problems usually make their social anxiety worse.
There is a better life for all people with social anxiety. Without treatment, social phobia is a torturous emotional problem; with treatment, its bark is worse than its bite. Add to this that the current research is clear that cognitive-behavioral therapy is highly successful in the treatment of social anxiety. In fact, people who are unsuccessful are the ones who are not persistent in their therapy and who won’t practice simple routines at home — they are the ones who give up. If a person is motivated to end the years of crippling anxiety, then cognitive-behavioral treatment provides methods, techniques, and strategies that all combine to lessen anxiety and make the world a much more enjoyable place. Many of us have been through the crippling fears and constant anxiety that social phobia produces -- and have come out healthier and happier on the other side.

-- Thomas A. Richards, Ph.D.
Psychologist

Although shyness & anxiety in social situations is normal for many teenagers, for a small portion of young people it is not just a phase they'll grow out of, according to a report.

In fact, young people whose symptoms are severe enough to be classified as social anxiety disorder (SAD) appear to be at increased risk for the later development of major depression, researchers suggest.

"We found that the presence of SAD in adolescence or early adulthood is a strong risk factor for the subsequent occurrence of depressive illness during young adulthood," according to a group of German & American researchers led by Dr. Murray B. Stein of the University of California, San Diego.

"Moreover...our observations suggest that those persons with the combination of SAD & depression in adolescence or early adulthood are at the greatest risk for subsequent depression (compared to those with just one of the two disorders)," the authors write.

The researchers interviewed more than 3,000 people between the ages of 14 & 24, all from Munich, Germany. At the beginning of the study, about 7% of participants had experienced social anxiety disorder at some point in their lives & about 14% depressive disorder. About 2.5% had both conditions at the same time.