I don’t know much about it but wouldn’t someone with social anxiety disorder have problems with a social message board like the SDMB?
Olivesmarch4th says part of her disorder are “general fear of being disliked” and “fear of revealing too much personal information about myself and being viewed as a whiny, immature, self-centered victim”. Can’t those things happen on a message board?
Or does social anxiety disorder only effect someone on a face-to-face basis?
I’m more asocial than AS, but I do get pretty anxious in social situations. I babble when I’m nervous and go quiet when I’m comfortable but not excited, which appears to drive some of my friends nuts.
I’m pretty clear on where it comes from: a childhood spent “letting others have their say” and never getting to say mine, plus 30 years of doing anything social wrong as per my mother the socialite wannabe. Once I was able to put her so-called social successes in perspective (all her hoity-toity “friends” who disappeared when Dad got fired, for example), that helped. I don’t enjoy most people, but now I’m OK with it and if people enjoy me that’s cool and if they don’t that’s cool too so long as nobody tries to hit anybody else.
Guess you could say I now have low social expectations but what the heck, so long as I can find my path to the nearest group of nerds I’m cool 
To the poster right before me (can’t see the name on “edit”): a message board is semi-anonimous. If you fuck up real bad, raising stakes is tons easier than rl, but also making amends. And in the case of the Dope, people usually make a point of being straightforward and of avoiding ad hominen attacks: even in the Pit they’re not as common as in many other boards. We have a social group where people are more likely to say “I think here you’re being an idiot, which is a pity because you’re usually a very intelligent person” or “that’s a dumb idea” than “what a maroooooon LOLZ 11!!!eleven!! ph34r mi leet puwr”
I know it sounds crazy, but for me, it’s pretty much only face-to-face. Online, I have very few reservations. For instance, I have almost no trouble talking about my anxiety here, but I would fear speaking about it face-to-face with someone else.
Hell, I even correspond with my friends much better online than face-to-face 
I had a boyfriend who could talk on the phone for hours (two and three hours… aaagh, my neck hurts just remembering it!) about his feelings and his dreams and his hopes and the future. But in person? Oh my, in person you were lucky to get anything more complicated than a choice of movie.
Same here, especially since I can take the time to compose an answer and then think about it in terms of whether it will offend someone. A live chat situation I couldn’t do.
To me, the difference between online and face-to-face interaction is mainly due to the fact that, when online, I’m not tied to the “conversation” in the same way. It’s the entrapment of conversation that’s so tiring - while the other person’s slowly telling you about the problems they’ve been having with their central heating (or whatever), in real life you’re pretty much stuck nodding and pretending to be interested.
“It was last Wednesday … no, wait, it can’t have been Wednesday, it must have been Tuesday, you know, when we had all that rain, or no, that was Wednesday wasn’t it …” ARGGGGHHHH!!! :smack:
Seven, for me the difference in interaction between people on a message board, and face-to-face is that I get to control so much more about what people see to make judgements upon.
If we’re meeting face-to-face the first thing you’re going to see about is that I’m 5’9", 390 lbs, balding, round-faced, button-nosed, and wear huge glasses. My hair may even be trying to attempt an Einstein-like explosion. (What there is of it.) For most people, all those factors are going to be things that they make judgements upon. My problem is that I’m so convinced that once people see me there’s nothing I can do to change the generally negative opinion that people will have of me, that I stress out big time.
On a message board the only thing I get judged upon are things that I do, or type. If I present myself, as I like to believe I usually do, in a literate, considered and polite manner, I’m going to usually be treated with respect, even when people don’t agree with my viewpoint. To my mind, this is nearly blissfully relaxing. It’s not that I think that people are any less judgemental on messageboards, rather that on messageboard the environment is one where I feel that I’m playing to my strengths, not my weaknesses. And so I welcome the judgement of my peers because I’m confident I’ll present myself well.
You guys can’t tell if I’m nervous or crying while I post (unless I choose to tell you that)- knowing that people can see that I’m nervous or (worse) crying makes me more anxious, which starts the feedback loop. I can also refrain from telling you guys anything that you might criticize me for. You might be able to figure those things out if you saw me and criticize me even if I didn’t tell you, but it’s harder on a message board…
Also, there are mods here- if someone decided to take advantage of my lack of social skills to bully me, all I’d need to do is report them to the mods, who would be likely to take care of the problem. They can’t corner me when the mods aren’t around, like people in school could when the teachers weren’t.
Are we related? My hair has two eigenstyles- Einstein, and Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. Any hairstyle I can get my hair to do is going to be somewhere between those two…
Dunno if you caught it, but in Post 2 I did acknowledge having a hard time with message boards, too. Some people do, some people don’t, I guess. I think one of the reasons is because words are so powerful to me… sometimes the written word here can have way more impact on my mood here than random people “out there.” Also, people “out there” are generally polite or face consequences. The internet has a certain degree of anonymity, so politeness standards tend to be a little lax. SMDB is the most regulated of all in this regard, but in a way it hurts MORE to be insulted because you know the person doing it is intelligent.
People are just scary in general. Yay. 
I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet (so I might have missed it), but there’s a forum and chat room for social anxiety. The forum has over 11,000 members.
When I was struggling the most with my anxiety, I stopped coming here for a couple of months. I can’t really remember why, now. I think I felt too fragile, and if someone said a harsh word to me, it would have crumpled me. (I don’t have that problem any more. 
) When I was starting to recover, I used this place as a practice field, to practice putting my opinion out there, and supporting them, and having them (occasionally) attacked, and realizing that I have a right to opinions, and defending them, and nobody is any better or worse than I am, and someone disagreeing with me isn’t the end of the world.
I think this thread has helped me in dealing with these issues.
I had to serve on Jury Duty this week-- a serious and dignified courtroom would be a scenario in which I would be likely to drive myself insane with worry about humiliating myself. But somehow I was able to recognize when my fears weren’t realistic, and dismiss them, and complete my service comfortably–it was actually quite enjoyable. Hell, the other day I was reading in the library and my stomach growled really loudly–instead of abject humiliation I responded to my impulse to panic with the following thought: “Why do I care what this kid next to me thinks? I’m probably never going to see him again.”
Sometimes it pays just to hear you’re not a freak. Thanks guys.
He probably thought you were hungry.
(Did you remember to give yourself copious amounts of praise for doing something you were afraid of doing, Olives? Positive reinforcement, baby.)
One of my co-workers (who is a chronic worrier) talked about a therapist she was seeing who would have her say what the worst thing that could happen would be, and what if that in fact happened? Just how bad would it be? And pushing it as far as possible so that even if the worst happened (which it almost never does) it wouldn’t be so bad.
Bwa ha ha! that’s what you think…next thing you’ll know his parents will move in next door to you and you’ll see him playing outside every morning as you get ready for work…and he’ll always remember you as the one with a grumbling stomach.
I have not read much of this thread. My situation is almost definitely not the same as people who suffer from SA. However, my experience may shed some light on a few people’s problems.
I’ve always been an introvert. Being in a band that (by necessity) meets new people all the time, helped me deal with a lot of my insecurities. I had to learn how to take a compliment without making excuses. I also had to learn to be a bit assertive, because if I wasn’t, the other guy would make my life harder.
After a couple years, I developed a “swagger”. A kind of “you know who I am” sort of thing. I could walk into a bar that I had never heard of, in a state I had never been in, and people could still tell that i was “important” to some degree. This is not, and was not “cockyness” I hate that crap. This was just a sense of self-worth.
I can still call up that sense of security at any time. I can walk into a bar I’ve never been to, and still act like I own the place.
I’m not sure how this might help a random person with SA, but I know I could help a friend of mine with it.
This thread has been a great help to me. Thanks everyone.
Well, but you’re not the one who tentatively posted to a SA thread and was roundly ignored!
Kidding.
Sorta: :}
Hey Malacandra, I know the feeling!
So how are you doing now? Did you ever make it back to university? Have you found anything that works? What helps the most?
I muddle through. Story of my life really. Any day now I will get around to the intimidating experience of picking up the phone and talking to a motorbike dealer about letting me give him a lot of money for a motorbike. You can imagine how it was trying to sell my book manuscript!
In December I started an Open University degree course. I’m not in a position to become a full-time student again, not with a family and mortgage to pay for. So far it’s going well and I have enjoyed the two tutorials I have been to.
Strangely, I can cope with being a parish councillor, a PCC secretary, even conducting the occasional church service - I guess I’ve learned to fake it convincingly enough. But if I were transported back in time to the autumn of 1979, I haven’t a clue whether I would make out any better, even now.