Don't no where to start

[sian12]

So I've been living with social anxiety for the past 8 years since i was around fourteen.For the last 5 years I've pretty much given up on life and just stay inside through this I've lost all friends. I'm 22 and haven't had a job and the thought of having one terrifies me.I won't to make changes to my life but have no idea where to start.Just writing this on here is giving me a lot of anxiety.Just wondering if there's anyone else who's feeling like this or has been in this situation and have advice on how to take steps to regaining control of my life.

[Ermm... Yeh?]

Probably can't be of much help, but the way in which I try to deal with Depression is to focus and what I will be looking back on in the future, and trying to minimise the things I'll regret.

For me a lot of my ruminating is focused around how I should have done things, how I should have known better, and how I should have been more capable. So to counter this I try to act in a way that e.g. in 5 years time I won't be as able to feel the same way about my current self. Basically identifying things which make depressed, why they make me depressed, and minimising the anount of them that I experience - for me this means education.

I would personally say it can never hurt to learn something, hobby, language, instrument etc if there's always been something you've wanted to do or be, sit down and work out specifically what you have to do to be able to do or be that. To do lists work wonders with this for simoly because it feels like I'm making more progress/motivates me to figure out the specifics of what I need to do more readily.

[RLeeG]

I know the feeling, as I tend to ruminate over things I've said or done in social situations and beat myself up over it - for example meetings at work, nights out, etc. Sometimes something will pop into my head from months/years ago that I remember and this can bring me down. I know people that say equally daft things that either don't notice or notice then forget almost instantly, I wish was more like them!

I am in some ways the opposite to you in that I ruminate over the future, thinking that there will be some catastrophe in the future that will be my fault. I look back on the past through rose tinted specs (through nostalgic photos of the 1980s, music, etc.), remembering only the good things and contrasting this with the (probably peceived) bad situation I'm in now. Very destructive and warped.

Some of the reading I have done about this suggests that we focus on the present, as the past is a previous version of the past that no longer exists (the present we have might be as a result of the past but it no longer exists so we can't change it), and the future hasn't happened yet. The closest we can get to affecting the future is by what we do now (and there are so many factors affecting what happens in the future apart from us).

I think what it is saying is live for the moment. Easier said than done, but I am finding at the moment that taking each day as it comes and not thinking too much about the past and the future is helping. A bit.

All the best everyone.

[ryanharris]

I felt like this when i first joined sauk last summer . But it can definitely get better I now have a part time retail job (never thought i'd be able to be in a customer facing role) and am well on way to getting my career on track.

I did it by just feeling the fear and doing it anyway, i'm a strong believer that this is the only cure, even though most people dont want to hear it.

[Olly.]

Don't worry, you're far from alone on here, many of us are struggling as well and don't really know how to get our lives on track either as SA is so difficult to live with when it gets this bad. I notice you've been a member for a couple of years and this is your first post though, so you could definitely look at that as being a start however insignificant it may feel. As for getting your life back on track, it won't be easy and no one can give you a definitive answer to that one, but what this forum can do is give you support, advice and hopefully comfort in knowing that you're not alone at all in having such problems, so I certainly recommend you post more on here as it can be a very useful community (and everyone's very nice as well)

[sian12]

Hey Thanks for the reply's i was so nervous of posting on here,so thanks for being so nice.