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  #1  
Old 8th December 2006, 14:57
Progenic Progenic is offline
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Unhappy Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Hi all im new to this site and i guess im new to SA, (well been a sufferer for 15 years but only just realised whats wrong with me).
I have never told anybody about the way i feel or indeed my anxieties, i have always been too worried what they would think of me. I went to the doctors yesterday and i plucked up the courage to ask him to refer me to somebody.(at that point i was going to change my mind and say a back specialist) but when he asked what for i just came out with it " i think i suffer from SA i said", i was ever so slightly proud of myself at that point...

I think this all started when i was 18 somebody spiked some food i ate with an LSD tab, and what followed that night was just horrible. I guess you could say i had a bad trip, which ended up with a room full of people in hysterical laughter on my account, name calling, finger pointing, teasing the whole lot. And in my lsd mind at the time things became very very magnified. You can probably imagine that had a lasting effect on me, and over the years i played the scene over and over in my mind.
I just couldnt forget about it, it haunted me (and still does for that matter) i couldnt believe that could ever happen to me. I was always confident and loved all social situations especially parties, i loved meeting people and i loved life. But somehow something happened that made me the laughing stock, i felt weak, i felt humiliated, i lost all my confidence. Gradually over the years my friends fell by the way side and i became more and more isolated, trapped in my own mind, constantly replaying the same scenario.
I started to develop other simptoms i would start to shake when i was around other people, i would get a facial tremor, sweating, palpatations, panic attacks ect.
That was 15 years ago and its taken me untill now to actually realise im not a total nutter, i have SA. Im mad with myself that i couldnt pluck up the courage straight away and get help for it, and that i have wasted 15 years hiding away from the world. But still better late than never i guess !
Sorry about the ramble there i just had to tell somebody my story, but my real concerns now are these....

I have done much reading up on SA and realise the american doctors are well up on SA and related illness's, and have very good approaches to treatment both with medicine and therapy. However after reading up on english doctors theories about it there seems to be a slight gap in the understanding. ie American doctors say after extensive research they realise SSRI's are 97% ineffective as mono treatments for SA, although alot of English doctors say the best treatment for SA is using SSRI's ! im worried by this.
Does anydody know about MAOI's especially phenelzine and its effects and uses ? And what about treatments in general for SA, does anybody have much experience of this...cognitive therapy or psychotherapy for instance ?
Does anybody have experience of getting better ? getting back to how they used to be, or to the point where you could say your totally cured ? or is there no reported cases of this, will i be like this for ever ?
Hope some of this made sense i kinda lost my point in there somewhere, anyways i feel a bit better now i have actually told my story, that has remained a secret for 15 years.
  #2  
Old 8th December 2006, 15:08
Freespirit Freespirit is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

I have had a bad trip on lsd and it makes me anxious just thinking about it. I have also had badish trips on lighter gas when i was younger. I remember once when the other lads i was doing it with decided to leve me on my own when i was tripping. i woke up all alone as absolutely petrified. I got extremely paranoid. i found the other lads downstairs and they were both talking to each other. I got wreally paranoid it was about me. I dont think i have ever been the same since. freaks me out whenever i think about it.
  #3  
Old 8th December 2006, 15:25
sophie79 sophie79 is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Quote:
Originally Posted by Progenic
I guess you could say i had a bad trip, which ended up with a room full of people in hysterical laughter on my account, name calling, finger pointing, teasing the whole lot. And in my lsd mind at the time things became very very magnified.
Christ that's horrible. I can't believe people would do something like that

I really think you should go for some psychotherapy or hypnosis to help deal with this memory. Your SA may be partly down to post-traumatic stress disorder.
  #4  
Old 8th December 2006, 15:30
lucy lucy is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Well done for posting your story Progenic!
That experience must have been awful and I can understand how it would make you feel the way you do.
I had a trip when I was younger and it made me feel deeply paranoid and vunerable.

I've never heard of anyone completly getting over SA I think people just go through stages of it being better and worse, well that's the case with me anyway.
  #5  
Old 8th December 2006, 17:07
Progenic Progenic is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Thanks everyone for your replies, any kind of drug that messes with your mind is a very dangerous drug indeed, i would not have taken lsd freely i guess thats why someone spiked me with it, they thought it would be a laugh, and laugh they had !
Im just waiting for the doctor to get me the referal to a professional (ha) im just praying that whoever gets the referal is just the perfect person for me to see and get help from. As i understand it SA is the most misunderstood and mis-diagnosed illness. I just hope im not fobbed off with some anti-depressants and told to rest for a week or two.
I really want help now im sick of being weak and affraid all the time, i want to get out there and enjoy myself again.
Thanks again for your coments and advice :-)
  #6  
Old 8th December 2006, 17:31
Mr Ron Burgundy Mr Ron Burgundy is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Hey there Pro, im new here too

Recreational drugs can have a huge effect, and that's awful it was through being spiked as well. I know a lady who 5 years after stopping occasional speed and ecstacy use had a career stopping year of panic attacks, so they are nasty things!

Can i ask what sites etc you have researched on mate, and if you could possibly post links please? I need to get researching too! My experience of uk docs has been very shoddy as well
  #7  
Old 8th December 2006, 19:55
Progenic Progenic is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Hi Ron

In the course of my own self awareness i started looking around on the internet and found several sites (this one included) which had good info on various illness's, below is a few of the links mate.

http://www.socialfear.com/
http://psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/social_phobia.htm
http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/ar...ialphobia.html
http://www.phobics-society.org.uk/index.shtml
http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/define.html
http://www.social-anxiety.org.uk/
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3121.htm
  #8  
Old 8th December 2006, 20:07
Mr Ron Burgundy Mr Ron Burgundy is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Excellent Pro! That's much appreciated thank you mate
  #9  
Old 8th December 2006, 20:08
shiningsunbeams_xx shiningsunbeams_xx is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Quote:
Originally Posted by yaztromo
Christ that's horrible. I can't believe people would do something like that

I really think you should go for some psychotherapy or hypnosis to help deal with this memory. Your SA may be partly down to post-traumatic stress disorder.
I agree- I've had hypnotherapy (not for SA something else which I don't wanna go into as it's personal but all I need to say is the hypnosis worked like a charm and I'm now free of that problem) and it's not weird or wacky in fact it's an extremely good way of teaching your mind and body new feelings to replace the old ones with. To explain simplistically (as I'm tired and want to make this as brief as possible lol) just about everything we do is an acquired habit- so because of that one terrible experience you had, you acquired a sort of habit of reliving all the negative emotions associated with it, which has led to SA.

It works sort of like this: your subconscious mind, which is simply the part of your mind that controls the things you don't consciously think about, e.g. metabolism, heart-beat, body temperature, hormone levels etc, works to protect you and keep you functioning in what it believes the best way possible. Because you had such a traumatic experience, and it didn't know what to do (was helpless) to protect you from that, it likely went into shock and this is what happens when that happens: it over-compensates. It's almost like if it could think, it would think 'omg I failed him miserably there, he had that awful experience and I didn't protect him from it at all, therefore I must NEVER let that happen again'. So in order to 'protect' you from it, it can make you feel afarid/uneasy and anxious in all kinds of similar situations, anything that reminds you, whether consciously or subconsciously, of that traumatic event.

As hypnotherapy works directly with the subconscious mind it can gently undo this over-protectiveness and help you gain back the confidence you had previously. Because you HAVE experienced social confidence you are a very good candidate for hypnotherapy, because you can use memories of feelings to bring you the very feelings you desire and re-program them into your experience.

It really is a very wonderful, amazing and useful therapy when used competently. Check out the hypnotherapy association (google it, it should come up near the top somewhere) and the general hypnotherapy register (again google as I don't have these bookmarked) for a list of hypnotherapists local to you if you decide to give it a try.

There have been many misconceptions about it, but I know of many people who have been helped by it- and helped in the way that allows them to live the lives they always wanted to live- relying on nothing but themselves and their own natural ability to return to traits they used to have, or to develop new ones they were lacking.

There's also a therapy called EMDR that's meant to be really good for PTSD- I do believe some hypnotherapists are qualified in this. The GHR is a good site to find something like that out I think as it lists hypnotherapists by their special interest areas- what they work with most or have most experience/interest working in- so you could specifically look for therapists working with PTSD- I know it's just a label but you certainly had a very traumatic experience that has led to you developing traits you did not have previously.

Also there's something called EFT- it's pretty wacky but there's been amazing success with it and the best thing is it can be learnt for free and self applied- and it works on many different issues- check out www.emofree.com for case studies; you can download a free manual there too and try it yourself- though I wouldn't recommend trying it on your trauma right away, (from personal experience, I self applied it on mine and when the core feelings came up I was very distressed, it worked out fine in the long run but I had an upsetting experience and sometimes it can be hard to be your own therapist, especially when you're upset and can't think straight!), but more like to give you something you can do so as not to feel helpless against day to day things that might be bothersome to you.

I do remember saying I wanted to keep this post short so I'll leave these options with you... good luck with whatever you choose to do.

(omg!! I typed all this and then it was taking ages to post so THANK GOODNESS I pressed copy, just in case... and PHEW!! I got to a page 'this page cannot be displayed' and when I clicked back ALL TEXT HAD GONE so thank god thank god thank GOD I copied it otherwise it'd have all been lost and I'd have been here twice as long trying to type it all again!!)

Try again...
  #10  
Old 8th December 2006, 21:23
Progenic Progenic is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Thanks for that laura, you made me laugh too !
im going to check the whole hypnotherapy thing out and have a look around for good ones in my area. I just want as much help as i can get with this so hopefully before too long i can finally live my life again.
Thanks again

Johnny
  #11  
Old 9th December 2006, 23:06
carpy carpy is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Johnny,

I wouldn't normally post on here partly because i'm really damn lazy, but after reading your post I had to reply to you.

First of all hello, and well done for making the above post which must have felt like quite a relief after all these years.

I thought you should know that you sound a lot like me. I'm 29 at the moment but apart from that we could be one and the same.

I've recently found this site, and before that I thought I was just going mad or something. I've struggled along for the last 13 years trying to work it all out, not really getting anywhere. I am half convinced that my SA is caused by a bad trip I had one night also.

I was part of a large group of friends, doing the stuff naughty teenagers do.....I'd always felt confident around people, always had more friends than I could ever need, always had a nice girlfriend with another one trying to seduce me on the quiet etc. Things were pretty good, then one night some people including me were taking LSD. All was well and I was loving it - cracking off some off the cuff quips etc which were going down a storm. Then someone said I sounded exactly like another friend of ours, even some of the jokes sounded like his.

For some strange reason at that exact moment my mind just went crazy and I suddenly felt like I wasn't funny etc but that I was just a fake. I'd never felt like this before and this was pretty scary. I basically had to leave the group of people, and stumbled off on my own quite perplexed in my mind what was actually happening.

Then of course it spiralled. Why was I now on my own, why is everyone laughing, why aren't they helping. It went on the whole night and I'm pretty sure that's where my SA started.

I carried on almost as normal for a while, but I could feel something wasn't quite right. It's been slowly "changing" over the years, but I think now it's actually worse than it's ever been.

There are certain aspects which make me think it's actually got better. I run my own business, I deal with 3 or more customers face to face every day, I can sit in a pub without getting too nervous. I think really though whats happened is I have learned to deal with it but the underlying problem is still there.

I guess i'm not the "classic" SA because I can work and speak to people at work about whatever is the topic of the day. I think though that it's affecting me more than I realise now. I've always been able to find girlfriends no problem, even with the SA making it bloody difficult to act normal. Now though it's been 3 years since i've had a serious relationship and that's a first. Also as you get older your friends marry and move away, so now i'm realising that my lack of ability to make NEW friends is causing me to be alone a lot of the time.

I do have old friends I go fishing with (carp fishing hence my username) and I can usually find someone to play snooker or something, but it's not how I want to be. I feel like I am just existing at the moment, not wanting to do anything unfamiliar because of the SA, but also wanting to get this sorted once and for all so I can live my life free from the ridiculous mindset that SA gives you.

I think now that I know about SA, i'll have to take a trip to the doctors and explain that I just cannot go on like this and it has to be sorted.

I reckon a large part of reversing the SA is going to be accepting that it's not going to magically disappear one day and we'll be back to normal. If nothing is done then the next 45 years for us will probably be the same as the last 10/15. So that brings us to whatever we can try to at least improve things has got to be a step in the right direction.

Does this make sense?
  #12  
Old 10th December 2006, 11:52
Progenic Progenic is offline
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Default Re: Teenage bad trip leads to SA and misery

Hi Carpy,

Firstly good choice of name im a carp fisherman too (weird huh) !
and thanks for posting that, its made me feel better that there is someone else out there like me. For years i thought i was the only one in the world with my condidtion. I guess thats why i kept it secret for so many years i didnt think anyone would understand what had happened to me.
There seems to be a link between bad experiences like our (not just lsd) and the onset of SA. I think with the lsd a bad experience like that is magnified so much it makes a fairly normal event turn into a nightmare, which sticks in your mind for ages.
I was just the same as you, i was very popular had loads of mates always had the best looking girl on my arm, was confident ect. Then that happened
But thanks for that mate atleast we know there is atleast two of us that this has happened too huh.

Johnny
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