Posted by S.D. on September 25, 2000, at 1:16:38
Hi,
I'm S.D. and it's been 7 weeks since my last...errr...babble.I don't know what the official list/description of symptoms is, but there are several that are common, and I imagine that most of us s.a.d. people have only some, or varying degrees of each.
Are there therapies (meds, CBT or otherwise) that are particularly effective for particular symptoms (features or aspects, maybe I should say) of social anxiety disorder?
Does anyone who's had success with Klonopin distinguish its positive effects from those of other medications, or find that it only helped one out of many social-anxiety symptoms?For instance, there's what Donna Lynn described about being acutely self-conscious and embarrassment-prone about being observed in public and judged by strangers.
I had that moderately in childhood (and especially around age 11 to 17 they sometimes *really are* mocking or laughing at you) but the bullying decreased through high school and the anxiety lessened with the increasing insight that most people didn't give a flying crap about me and weren't paying attention to me whatsoever. It still affects me in ways - I have a great reluctance to buy something like condoms (not that I have a girlfriend so that it ever comes up...) but as long as I don't care whether I ever see the checkout person again I can eventually convince myself that with such a repetitive job she would scarcely notice, much less care, what a stranger is buying.Then there's what BillB described so well that I'll quote him:
"I was more apt to speak up in meetings, out of
apparent instinct, rather than the usual gut
wrenching decision making process that usually
proceeds speaking up"
This has been very prominent for me all my life, even in fairly ordinary circumstances among acquaintences (not "friends" - never had any). Especially in childhood it, was bad enough to be what they now call "selective mutism". This is the part that treatment has improved considerably. Hooray for Klonopin!But here's the thing - I don't know if this will change my life much because I still have these other symptoms:
One might just be the "tougher" examples of the same speaking problem - like speaking in front of a group or attempting extended conversation to attempt a friendship or courtship (I know nobody says "courtship" anymore, least of all me, but it fits syntactically so what the hell).
But another is my fear of judgement and negative-appraisal like when presenting a project I've done. I think this falls under the social anxiety umbrella, and a particular instance may involve speaking anxiety, but there's a big additional element that is about poor self-esteem and "thin-skinned-ness". Trying to attract a girlfriend, alluded to above, blends in here too under the heading of fear of appraisal and rejection-sensitivity.
**Does an MAOI, SSRI or other treatment preferentially help with these things, or should Klonopin be good for this as well?**peace and health,
S.D.
poster:S.D.
thread:45235
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000905/msgs/45235.html