Nerves and the first day of school

What if the other students don’t like me? What if I make a bad impression on the professor? Maybe I’ll do something stupid and everybody will laugh at me and make the rest of the semester miserable for me. Then I won’t have a lab partner and I’ll just be a worthless person.

These are the kinds of things that go through the mind of the socially anxious. For the past 2 semesters these thoughts plagued my brain and made me miserable at school; I never felt good enough and expected the worst case – although unreasonable – scenarios.

Oddly enough today I didnt seem to have such issues. But its kind of funny because I had anticipation of the anticipatory anxiety. On the way to my first class I was expecting to freak out at any minute, but the panic attack never came. Nevertheless I still felt very uncomfortable fearing that it would strike, and it did give me some anxiety thinking about it. I did my best to ignore it, kept walking, and had a wonderful first day of the semester with hopefully many more to come.

Major social phobia stepping stone achieved!!!!

I decided last minute to go to an event at a local bar tonight. Pretty much as soon as I got up to head there and the entire drive I was trying to control my anxiety attack to no avail however I trekked it out and for the first time in probably over a year, I didn’t rush to down enough alcohol to get me drunk. In fact, I didn’t even drink a sip all night! The best part of it all is that my anxiety went down very quickly after I forced myself through the situation and I had a very eAsy time socializing and dancing with my friends.

I’m very giddy tonight and quite proud of myself 😀

What the hell Paxil?!

I’m getting the brain zap symptoms of withdrawals today, however I have not skipped a day of meds. Has anybody had this issue before? I’m not quite sure how to handle it because I’ve been keeping up.

Although, this doesn’t bode well for Paxil as I’ve already been considering getting off of it before the brain zaps started. I’m really beginning to hate always being so tired and unmotivated. I don’t want to be a zombie anymore. But I also don’t miss being overly anxious and unstable..

I keep posting because I really don’t want to do my calculus homework

So, many apologies WordPress but here’s another one! I’ve kept this blog really impersonal because I originally wanted to keep it strictly to anything concerning my social anxiety. But I decided to write this one to talk a little bit about me outside of my disorder.

I’m currently attending a community college in hopes of transferring to a top University of California for a Neuroscience degree. But it’s so hard right now in California – the education system is all fucked up. It’s becoming more corporate and the most important thing to these universities is how to squeeze the most money out of us. And because more people are opting to go to college, it is so ridiculously competitive. This really hits hard for me because I already lack confidence in my intelligence to begin with.

I was always fascinated by the brain, but to study it – no way! I’m not that smart. So entering college, I went through many major changes until I joined a class that changed the course of my future. It was an introductory chemistry class. Just some stupid science lab that was required as my pre-reqs. But it was really challenging for me. I never had such a heavy course load before and it felt like I went from being one of the smartest in the class for the general ed’s to the dumbest in this class. But I met somebody who changed a lot for me. He helped me pass that class and was the first person to ever believe in me. If it wasn’t for him I most certainly wouldn’t be where I’m at today and I hope someday I can see him again and thank him for it.

He made me start to consider my abilities in pursuing my dreams. And slowly but surely, I started to get better. I’m rising to the top of my classes because I learned the value of hard work. Maybe I’m not that smart, but I think I make up for it with perseverance. And although I’m still unsure of my future, I’m starting to believe in myself too.

Ohhh so now you wanna get to know me

It’s funny how all the cool kids in high school stay within their cliques and look down on those who aren’t a part of it, but when they run into you years later all of a sudden they want to be your best friend.

I suppose it could be because I finally don’t care anymore. I’m starting not to care what anybody thinks anymore. It might be influenced by my increasing depression but it’s actually decreasing my social anxiety as a result. Don’t know which is worse, but I’ll take the change.

On another note, I’m set to start my prescription of the SSRI tomorrow. I’m a little scared about the side effects or that it won’t react well with me but I’m willing to take the risk over the weekend since I don’t have anything going on that I can’t easily flake out on.

I can probably get away with being sick. I’ve had this really bad sore throat for the past few days that I’m supposing is caused by my cigarettes but I’m sure the  shit I had to drink at the bar tonight didn’t help it any, especially the extremely chilled jager bomb I had to start the night with soooo I’ll probably wake up feeling pretty crummy.

 

I’m definitely beginning my self-destructive mode.

Doing what I want vs doing what makes me happy

You would think these two statements would be synonymous but, I’m doing what I want and it’s making me miserable.

My career goals are highly competitive and extremely difficult to keep up with. I’ve been working like a dog trying to achieve them yet it seems that the harder I try, the more out of reach my dreams are.

Every time I start to feel confident in my future, something always happens to make my self esteem crumble.

Even if I decided to give up my dream, I have no idea what will make me happy. Should I just give up and save myself a lot of time and heartbreak while I search for happiness? They say there comes a point where it’s time to let it go. But I’m too damn stubborn. I don’t want to look back and wonder, “what if?” Even my slimmest chance is still a chance. And like my recent post said, “there is always hope.”

I have a new found respect for musicians, models, actors, athletes. People think they have it so easy and maybe they’re right. They have it easy now, but it wasn’t always like that. There’s a lot of pain and stress while working their way to the top when all the odds are against them. Then there comes a point where it seems no amount of hard work is ever good enough.

A man’s life is interesting primarily when he has failed–I well know.
For it’s a sign that he tried to surpass himself.
Georges Clemenceau

Introspection: There is always hope

It’s never been easy for me to ask another person for help, so you can only imagine how difficult it must have been for me to especially admit to needing emotional help and reaching out to a psychologist. But I finally did it and it feels great. We spent today allowing her to get to know me and my type of thinking and already just within that hour she has helped me discover a lot of things about myself.

All along I’ve solely been (silently) blaming my mother for having social anxiety. Statistically speaking it runs in the family. But, much like the biological theory of the creation of life: it had to be really hot, lots of lightning, the right concentration of certain chemicals in the air, etc. there was exactly all the right variables in my life to make me the mess that I am right now. Both my parents love me, but the difference between the two is that my father’s love is conditional. He only loves me when he’s happy with me. If I ever make any mistakes, he takes away his love and ignores me.

I always considered that to mean that he’s just an asshole and forgot about it; but he instilled something in me. I never saw this before but I realize that he makes me feel that I have to be perfect or I won’t be loved. But most people aren’t really that critical.. right? I know that I have been in the past. I started to feel that I couldn’t love anybody else if they did anything short of flawless and I would throw away friendships and relationships quite frequently because of it. Then, I started making different friends who love me regardless of my problems and to this day it’s still a really weird feeling. I used to think I was incapable of love, but I think I love my friends unconditionally, too.

I can sit around and play blame games all day and point fingers at everybody who, throughout my upbringing, has done their part to make me the socially anxious, insecure little girl that I am today. But I don’t want to anymore. It’s not going to get me anywhere and it’s not going to make anybody feel better. After all, if I’m this psychologically troubled person because of my family, then it’s safe to say each individual family member has gotten their “brokenness” from somebody else. It’s just a domino effect and if I continue to cling onto this resentment, I’ll just be another domino crashing down. So, instead I’m going to work on resolving my problems to get me through these obstacles and make me a better person.

Isolated weekend

I haven’t seen the light of day outside my house since Thursday because I have so much studying to do for school. So, this is day 3 of not speaking face-to-face to another person outside my family. It’s really not a big deal sacrificing a weekend for my studies except that every time I get used to being in isolation, I get comfortable and it’s always hard returning to a social life come Monday – or at least not without anxiety attacks.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to juggle priorities between my health and my career aspirations without neglecting either.

Woo hoo! Taking the initiative

I finally managed to get an appointment with the college psychologist today. The date is set for next Tuesday. I’m pretty excited and really looking forward to it although a little scared I’ll run into someone I know in the waiting room of the tiny health office. I can just imagine the conversation:

Friend: OMG hey how are you? What are you here for?

Me: Oh uh appointment with the psychologist

Friend walks away.

Haha I’m sure that’s a serious over exaggeration of what any sincere human being would do but I can’t help but picture worst case scenarios.

On another note, I persevered through my anxiety and was in the audience of the Ellen DeGeneres talk show today. Just having normal conversations with another person is tough sometimes so it was kind of cool to be able to be a part of a TV crowd dancing and cheering along. It was definitely a fun experience.

Happy

It’s been a long time since I can recall having a sincere grin on my face. But last night I was truly happy. After opening up to a close person about my social anxiety disorder I’ve felt lighter on my feet – like if I’m not carrying all the baggage I had only a week ago. I still have frequent anxiety attacks but they are less severe and I don’t care about them so much anymore.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with the person that has made me the most anxious in the entire lifespan of my disorder. So, by association I had another episode that led me to say and act really stupid. But you know what? I don’t even care. Some of my favorite people say stupid stuff all the time and I don’t judge them harshly over it; so I figure it’s time I stop dwelling on my own dumb blurtings. It happens 🙂

Now in all rationality, I have been through these ups and downs many times. This is usually the point where I decide, “man I was so close to talking to a psychologist but no worries I’m good now.” And then some time later I return back into my slump, often worse than before. So I’m gonna try to make this a turning point and take it as a sign that it’s the best time to seek out a psychologist.

I went to my college health center today to try and make an appointment before class but the lady showed me all these papers I needed to fill out so I asked if I could bring it back filled out. She said she can only release half of the sheets and needed to see my student ID first. Then upon seeing it (the entire time being pretty rude, likely because she was in the middle of a conversation with a coworker, but being especially sarcastic here) telling me my ID isn’t even up to date and I needed a new one. Grr. I reluctantly say I need to see the psychologist and that’s how she decides to go about it. I should have told her I’ve been having really evil sociopathic thoughts; she probably would have been nicer to me plus priority appointment.

Anyway I returned back after class but there was another kid in there and I still don’t think I can bring myself to request a psychologist in front of other students, so I must wait again for the tiny intimate sized health office to be empty once again. But this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten and I’m pretty proud of myself today 🙂