Many people look at social anxiety as a high degree of shyness. However, we are talking about something quite different. People with this anxiety disorder can have their whole life ruined; even small and trivial things like paying a visit or taking a train or bus can seem completely impossible for them simply because of the pain the anxiety can cause.
Social anxiety is a diagnoses psychiatrist’s use when a person’s anxiety, in social situations is so strong that he or she has severe problems with functioning in their everyday lives. Many of these patients admit that their thoughts, feelings and actions are dysfunctional, but nevertheless they are not able to stop it. The disorder can be divided in two distinct groups; specialized and generalized. The Specialized disorder is anxiety that occurs in specific social situations, like partying with strangers and walking in a crowd of people.
In the generalized version of anxiety the symptoms are an excessive and chronic fear of any situation where social interaction is taking place. In this group, fear of being judged by other is dominating in addition to fearing embarrassment and humiliation because of what the patient is doing. These unhappy persons don’t trust themselves to handle social interactions either by fearing to do something to embarrass themselves or that other people will judge them too hard.
Severe anxiety and fear are not the only symptoms involved; the psychological symptoms are mixed with a number of physical symptoms as well. Symptoms like heart palpitations, nausea, excessive trembling, blushing, stammering and sweating are common. panic attacks are also a part of the disorder and can occur in situations that make the patient severely upset. Duration and severity of the symptoms varies from one individual to another.
To compensate for the pain anxiety in social situations, some people medicate themselves with alcohol or drugs, sometimes to an incapacitating point. Instead of solving their problems the substance abuse creates addiction problems on top of their anxiety. Some patients claim they are unable to function in social settings without taking drugs or alcohol to boost their self esteem.
Such a severe disorder in terms of limiting the patient’s life results in a huge demand of solutions. The supply of treatment solutions reflects the demand. The good news is that there are good treatments for social anxiety as well as panic attacks available, for example natural remedies, acupuncture and psychological treatments.
by Gary Gui