Living with depression, anxiety, social nervousness and peronality disorder

[Try_to_be_social]

Dear everybody,

I had a very unhappy childhood. My father tried to be domineering. Everybody in the family has to listen to him. As a result there were frequent arguments between my parents, which led to irritability in my mother. The whole atmosphere of the family was therefore poor. Father was the king, Mother was the bad-temper queen, my elder brother is the prince and I was lowest in the hierarchy and subject to bully. How can I face people with such upbringing? I have runny nose practically all the time and my handkerchief was always wet and dirty. My severe perennial allergic rhinitis that could not be helped by Ear-nose-throat specialists added to my low self-image. I used to suffer from asthma as well. Both the rhinitis and the asthma were worst in the winter but Father was a miser who would not spend money to warm up the house in the winter. Winter was therefore my nightmare. I was so low that I literally could not look up to see people. I always avoided eye contact with others especially persons of some authority, beauty or virtue. I was extremely uneasy in social situations. I thought others were looking down on me; no body would like and love me. I am still single. I have very few friends. Most of my acquaintances look down upon and do not contact me.

To try to overcome social anxiety, I tried a couple of sections of psychoanalysis section with a “psychologist.” when I was in secondary school. Lacking money, I attended his classes on “self-hypnotism,” which is actually a kind of meditation on retrospection.
I consulted a psychiatrist while I was in university. He did not give me a name for my condition. He gave me desipramine, which has no effect on me. Such second attempt did not work out.
I am suffering from poor sleep and anxiety when I was working. I was given lorazepam 2mg with some relief.
Then I found myself low. I was on fluvoxamine 50mg, mianserin 60mg and clonazepam 2mg before sleep for 10 years, after failing single drug therapy. I found Prozac, Citalopram, Sertaline, Paroxetine, Venlafaxine, Mirtazapine, and Monclobemide could not replace Fluvoxamine; amitriptyline, imipramine, clomipramine, nortriptline, dothiepin, doxepin, Maprotiline could not replace mianserin; Diazepam, lorazepam, chlordiazepoxide, Buspirone, Alprazolam, Bromazepam, and Pinazepam could not replace clonazepam. I found by trial and error, if allowed, one could find a suitable drug for a particular individual.
Can anyone tell me what disorder I am suffering from: depression, anxiety, social anxiety leading to anxiety and depression, personality disorder of some sort? Am I abusing drugs? Now what should I do from this moment? Cut down my drugs? If yes, but in what order? Insight psychotherapy? Psychoanalysis? Cognitive therapy?
While I am waiting to seek your precious advice, I am trying to take Fluvoxamine off. But my social anxiety come back a bit. I am more uneasy in social situation and try to avoid eye contact more often. I does not af

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

The best advice I can give you is that you seek insight therapy and take only the medications necessary to help you with your social anxiety.  You past experiences have set a pattern but you can change that  pattern.  You will have an automatic feeling response to people that is similar to the past, but then, after a beat, you can look at the reality of the situation and find a much better response than your old responses thatwere based on such low self regard.  It will take many sessions..don't expect a magical cure..but a good therapist will give you homework so you can work on things in between sessions.   Get this kind of help..stop looking for a chemical cure.

[keeknap]

hi everyone, why are you depressed, have anxiety?

  www.adderall (adderrall)-free-kids.com
  
  scroll down a little and click on scientifically in blue.
  
  im not to sure about what they want you to take because its all vitamins. you can get that at your local store. from stress you lack. buy some vitamins like mostly b-complex and a good source of a one a day to put all you lose back into your body and balance back those hormones.

[Lauren D]

Hi,  I will try to be brief but I doubt that will happen. Ha ha. I was wondering what the problem may be with me. I think that I am depressed. I am not sure to what point you would call it depression but I have been unable to keep a job and I  avoid going outside anymore. I am incredibly tired and I cry alot.  I am constantly talking to myself and negative. I pace around the house and I keep the doors locked all the time. I am constantly peeking out the windows. I no longer find pleasure in doing anything. I dont cook. It takes all I've got to keep the house clean and make dinner.When I do go out I swear that people are talking about me and I always have this person although no face..Watching me whereever I go. I thought that mabey this person is me though. I dont want any company and over time I have lost all the friends I had. I used to have many.

Sometimes, I get angry in my thoughts and think of violent things. I do not drink or smoke or take any medication.
I am VERY self-concious and I have low self esteem. I dont hate myself, I love my family but they are all away. At this point I have not even been able to keep Doctors appointments. I used to love to go for a hike and go fishing but I am trapped here for some reason. When I was working, I would get ready and get dressed and think..Ok..Your fine. Now Go.. and by the time I would get there I would shrink. I would find myself in the bathroom for 5-10 minutes and I would give my mind some rest from self-Conciousness. This is making my life miserable. I dont want to take medication. Seems like the whole planet is on Paxil or something. I would like to solve the problem by finding the reason I have it. I would also like to know what it is.

P.S. I was Sexually abused for 8 years when I was young. I guess that might be giving me a bit of trouble.

Please help me out if you have some time. Much appreciated.
Thank you for your site and time.

Lauren Deichmann

[keeknap]

those feelings are so fimiliar. when i was working in my early 20's i went to work and when i got there i just wanted to cry my face off. i didnt know what was wrong with me. i thought i was just spoiled and didnt want to work. when i had a day off it was more of a relief. but yet i couldnt not work. i needed money. well to make a long story short,later in life i realized i developed a fear of people. social anxiety disorder. i had a good job once doing nails in a salon and i quit because i was afraid of people yelling at me if a nail broke,and if i got yelled at or imbarraced i couldnt think strait and i would start shaking. i didnt know what was happening to me. i thought  that was just my personality and i had to find a job tucked away somewhere. i just pinned myself as a sensitive artist. then it got worse, i went to doctors and they said to see a spychiatrist because i was having physical pain and problems that they couldnt find what was wrong with me but i didnt believe them. and as far as a spychiatrist goes, that would mean im crazy. they didnt exactley expain to me (for years they have been telling me to see one) that it was depression and anxiety and that it was a chemical imbalance and it can be treated. I YIYE YIYE. i could have felt better years ago. so when you have depression and anxiety, things seem wierd. not everyone gets the sme exact symptoms but mostly. i hid most of the time i never wanted to see anybody. i cut my family off and i was close to ten sisters and brothers. i felt like i was going nuts. suasidal thoughts u name it. well, it got so bad that i became severly depressed and thats when you feel like your trippin on any wierd drug but without the good feeling. your afraid to talk to people because your cant concentrate on what there saying and it feels like they can read your thoughts and think your stupid. all i did was cry because i was tired of thinking i had to be strong. so i was put on wellbutrin because nothing else seemed to help and in 6 weeks i felt much better. my sister helped me because she went through the same thing. only i still have anxiety but not the worst of it. i think i damaged something for waiting so long to get help. i ended up with a touch of spasmotic torticollis. (involentary head movements and a pulling of the head to the rightwhen im under stress or someone is paying to much attention to me. but i take the generic for klonopin and the only anxiety med i can take is effexor. i can drive comfortably now and do shopping and i see a lot of my family .i was so totaly trapped in my house and was so uncomfortable and even worse i had to try and act normal because i had to much pride and my boyfriend didnt believe me untill just up untill 2 months ago a guy friend of ours took a shot for his hepititis and became severley depressed and i had to talk to him to asure that he was going to be allright. well my boyfriend seen a guy have similiar actions that i had and now he treats me with a bit more respect.  im hanging in there and you do the same your answers will come and youll get better.

[keeknap]

and i also say to take b complex and your daily vitamins because thats what the hormones need to stay balanced. b is essential to the overall well being like being alert. thinking better, not getting depressed. sleeping better. more energy. and you have to exersise whether you like it or not. and see a psychiatrist for meds because that is there specialty.

[Try_to_be_social]

Dear Lauren,

I am sorry that you feel low, tired, lack of pleasure, very conscious of yourself and cry, with negative and violent thoughts.
Your condition affects your job, housework, relationships with your friends, family and doctor, and hobbies.  
I really think you should tell your doctor about all your feelings. Your doctor is in the best position to give you the professional view and tests and refer you to the appropriate specialists. I could try your best to describe your feelings to your family and friends. They may give you the best support and constructive decisions, and accompany you to see your doctor. Psychiatrist and psychologist are the ones who can deal with your feelings and sexual abuse of 8 years. Psychiatrist may or may not give you medications. Try to get all possible help from your doctors, family, friends, and medications even though your may not feel like to. The reason is that they are your best solution to your problem. Give up her helplessness and face your problems with enthusiasm and get up and go to all possible sources of help. Be strong and face it and beat it.

Kindest regards from Try_to_be_social

[Lauren D]

Thank you so much for your comments. They have been a great help to me. I have not spoken to any family or friends about it all and it is great to be able to get some insight. At least when I do talk to them I will be ready. I will take your advice. Back to me...

Thanks Again. Take Care.

[JCEL]

Hello!
I'm new here and suffer from social anxiety disorder also. I was pritty much born sensitive and shy but loved socializing, things started to get really bad when I turned 15.My anxiety level went up and my stress hit the roof.That's when I tolk a nevious break down and school was too much for me to handle.Then depression set in.I'm 19 now and my social life has gone down the drain! I want to go back to school and get job you know {get a life!} but everytime I do I feel really anxious and paranoied I'm afraid of making a fool of myself in public my stress level goes way up and I just can't handle it! I've seen three srink's and tryed Paxil,Salxsa-how ever you spell it,Zoloft,now Effexor Xr and nothing is working, I'm on an anxiety program but I really need more help! My srink now is a......you no what!It just seems like I spining my weels and I'll be this way forever. Where I live there's no help for social anxiety. I feel loney,anxious,tired and depressed have a hard time sleeping at night,I can't eat anything hardly, MY LIFE IS JUST GONE! Is there anything to do for this social anxiety and cure it for good so I can have my appitite,social life and my mind back!!!

[Try_to_be_social]

It seems that your condition is quite similar to mine, namely Social Anxiety Disorder leading to Depression and General Anxiety Disorder. But I have a lot more choice of drugs than you have. I have tried all your drugs (Paxil, Celexa, Zoloft, Effexor.) All of them had no effect on me. They belong to a group of antidepressants known as SSRI or its “relative.” Both SAD and GAD should be treated with anxiolytics rather than antidepressants. SSRIs are primarily for depression. In order to avoid the addictive effect of anxiolytics, SSRIs are prescribed for SAD and GAD. I do not know the reason why I was given an antidepressant (desipramine) with entirely no anxiolytic effect for my SAD and GAD in the first place! I was given Ativan (lorazepam) up to 2mg years later. Anxiolytics will not create dependence when prescribed less than 2-3 months. Some GAD and SAD are given pure sleeping pills like Ambian (Zopidem) that do not relieve them of their anxiety. Scared of abuse and dependence? Ativan 2mg before sleep did relieve part of my anxiety and sleeplessness. Later Fluvoxamine (a SSRI) 50mg before sleep was added to relieve my dysthymia (depression.) Then Klonopin (clonazepam) 2mg that worked better than and hence replaced Ativan 2mg. I was still low. Therefore Mianserin (an antidepressant) was added up to 60mg before sleep. Then I have been doing very well in the last 10 years. Sorry to bore you with so many drugs that may add further stress on you. But I believe my drugs or similar combination may benefit you. You may try an anxiolytic like Klonopin or Ativan. Try Effexor if it works. I Effexor does not do the job, switch to another class of antidepressant, say Wellbutrin, Mianserin, Remeron or Fluvoxamine. I am sure you are not allowed to have 2 antidepressants at the same time. But if nothing works, 2 antidepressants are worth a try. Your psychiatrist would kill me though! The combination of drugs, psychotherapy, exercise, relaxation meditation like yoga, confiding relationships like friends, family, religion, and a good job/school is always better than one or none. Mind your priority is your Depressive Disorder at the moment.  

Try everything healthy vigorously,

From Try_to_be_social

[JCEL]

I forgot to add that I've been on adivan and clonozapam sorry about the spelling.They both were great! but made me a little too high and then a got alergic (allergic) reaction and became even worse then I was in the begining so I just don't think drugs are going to help me!!! Anyway I've found a web site that may be of some help:www.socialanxietyinstitute.org I don't know if you heard of it or not.

[Try_to_be_social]

You said you are born sensitive and shy and have social anxiety. That means your personality is prone to general anxiety and social anxiety. In order to change your personality, you need powerful and drastic measures. They are professional psychotherapy, love and religion. They can change your life. Try to love and help instead of fear and avoid others. Those who love others will be loved.  
You said that you had a nervous break down and sustain depressive symptoms and that you have tried benzodiazepams and SSRI antidepressants. At some stage your nervous breakdown and other symptoms are very much improved by psychiatric intervention. And the most powerful tools of psychiatry are psychotherapy and medications. They both had helped you before and may be of great value to you in the future. Psychotherapy is especially useful for those find medications non-responsive.
While you are exploring new means of curing your condition, you cannot discredit those old psychiatric managements that have saved your in the past and disregard them now entirely. The solution to your problem is right before and very much known to you. By all means, get your help in www.socialanxietyinstitute.org which falls in the realm of psychiatry. A bird in hand is better than 2 on the tree. You may find alternative treatments for your condition. But there is no guarantee these measures give you permanent cure without recurrence, similar to psychiatric strategy. Sorry to discourage you to search for alternative cure but one has to face reality. There may not be a cure for a personality disorder and we may have to live with it all our lives.
So much pessimism, on the other hand I have known people who can do without medication and therapy. They have great faith in relaxation/meditation like yoga, regular exercise like swimming, regular religious gatherings, groups of really good friends, good job/continuing education and/or hobbies that they really enjoy. In fact, exercise is well proven to have therapeutic effect in psychological and psychiatric and most physical conditions.

Try all your alternative cures that you can find but keep your old psychiatric remedies in reserve,

From Try_to_be_social

[hitssquad]

--- On 10-Aug-03, Try_to_be_social asked:
> Father was the king, Mother was the bad-temper queen,
> my elder brother is the prince and I was lowest in the
> hierarchy and subject to bully. How can I face people with
> such upbringing?

> could not be helped by Ear-nose-throat specialists added
> to my low self-image.

> I always avoided eye contact with others especially persons
> of some authority, beauty or virtue. I was extremely uneasy in
> social situations. I thought others were looking down on me;
> no body would like and love me. I am still single. I have
> very few friends. Most of my acquaintances look down upon
> and do not contact me.

> To try to overcome social anxiety, I tried a couple of
> sections of psychoanalysis section with a “psychologist.”

> Can anyone tell me what disorder I am suffering from:
> depression, anxiety, social anxiety leading to anxiety
> and depression, personality disorder of some sort?

Your description most-closely fits AvPD -- Avoidant
Personality Disorder. Read about it here:
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/avoid.htm

A person can easily have more than one personality disorder
at the same time, (for example, AvPD clusters with other
anxiety-based personality disorders, so you might be Dependent
Personality Disordered, as well) but AvPD would be a good bet
to look into first since it matches your description so
tightly, particularly the parts I quoted from you above.

All of the portions of your post are classic AvPD and any
psych professional familiar with it would likely, in my
opinion, diagnose you immediately. One reason AvPDs tend not
to be correctly diagnosed is that psych professionals tend to
be relatively ignorant of that particular disorder, as it
is relatively rare and only affects about 1% of the
population. Also, sometimes psych professionals believe it
would be too devastating for a personality-disordered person
to hear what he has.

The best non-drug therapy for AvPD is several hours per
day of quiet meditation, putting the day's social stresses
into perspective. Try not to blame when you do this. What
helps the most is to understand that other people have
human frailties just as you have. It's no one's fault.
Someone has to take the first step and call a "blame-war
cease-fire". Let it be you. Be a hero. It initially won't
feel right, but it will eventually make you feel better to
know that other's abusive behavior toward you is a cry for
help -- just the same as your avoiding eye contact is a cry
for help. We all need each other to accept that what we do
is not entirely our own faults, and that there are thousands upon thousands of reasons that stretch all the way back to
the days we were born. Accept others unconditionally whenever
and wherever you can and others will see you do it and spread
it themselves.

It would also be helpful for you to cultivate non-judgmental
friends you can really trust and who won't mind giving you
the daily reassurances and reminders (that you psychically
need as an AvPD) that they still and will always take you
at face value and don't look down on you.

Lastly, any personality-disordered person needs to realize
-- if even just for sake of his/her own psychic relief --
that just as he/she can't necessarily help feeling and
acting the way he does, neither can anyone else necessarily
help the ways *they* feel and act. It can be hard at first to
realize this, because the personality disorders express so
differently from one another that their symptoms can look
like deliberate aggression and malice directed from the
disordered persons toward you. But if you read here about
the other personality disorders...
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/ourdesk.htm

...you can see that other personality-disordered persons
cannot help feeling-acting the way they do any more than
you could before you discovered your disorder was the reason
for your feelings and behavior.

AvPD discussion-group home page:
http://groups.msn.com/AvoidantPersonality/home.htm

Examples of AvPD:
http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/examples.html


-Chris

[Try_to_be_social]

Dear Chris,

I appreciate your help, your efforts and your coping methods of meditation, viewing our problems as not entirely our faults and others perceived negative behaviors are cries for help, unconditional positive regards for others and ourselves, avoiding fights and making non-judgmental friends. These general coping skills can also be applied to other psychiatric conditions and be indeed a way of life or a school of philosophy.
However I am sorry that I verily believe that online forum can never substitute a live interview with a psychiatrist for a diagnosis of a condition. And making an online diagnosis of personality disorder is even more difficult or unbelievable. Personality disorder is defined as an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviate from cultural norms, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in early adulthood and persist throughout much of life, is stable over time, and leads to impairment in functioning or distress to self or society. How can we therefore diagnose personality disorder without an exhaustive history spanning throughout our lives? Do we require many sessions with the psychiatrist?
If there were symptoms of social inadequacy, should we ascribe them to personality disorder or conditions like social anxiety disorder? If the symptoms can be explained by a psychiatric condition, a diagnosis of personality disorder using the same set of symptoms should not be made. I agree that a psychiatric disorder is sometimes associated with predisposing personality traits but these traits may not automatically amount to a personality disorder.

Thanks