I know some people would blame Warcraft, mood swings, or whatever, but I find myself retreating to my anti-social ways again. At work there are only 3 people I can talk to without getting severely annoyed, I take the long way around the office just to avoid people, I find myself wanting to take the 9 floors of stairs just to avoid being in an elevator with someone else. Any unavoidable conversations I get into with people results in my vocabulary being reduced to yeah (meaning yes), whatever (meaning no) and sure (meaning just go away I don’t want to talk to you). I can’t help but see other people as being dirty, things to be avoided for the sake of my own health, which might explain why I find it so much easier to talk to screen names anf clusters of pixels over the internet...
Yes, I have social anxiety, I normally keep it in check, but sometimes it just gets to be too much. Normally there is a trigger (politics, someone trying to call me out on some topic, my job in general), some event that pushes me over the edge, causes me to lose touch with the world and want to do anything to avoid any social contact. It normally starts with getting sick, not legitimately fever or flu-like sick, but sick to my stomach, dizzy, headaches ect, a very short temper, minor masochism, and a slightly sadistic side also surface. I have talked with a shrink about it before with them trying to put me on every drug in their stock portfolio and the suggestion that I try to be around people more. (really? let me just drop you from a plane to get you over your fear of heights….)
Normally I can manage it, people never know I have these issues. I simply ask myself what a normal person would do and simply do it without thought. That has gotten me through meetings, crowded elevators, even public speaking engagements. But lately it just doesn’t seem like enough, my anxiety has been leaking through. I’ve been having a lot more trouble being around people. (not counting my wife, she’s about the only person I can stand to be around anymore.)
Maybe it is the frustrations of work weakening my resolve, maybe it is the odd, renewed devotion to incompetence that my coworkers have exhibited, either way I have been feeling the need to get away. Part of my thinks a new job would help, (one with less people around), part thinks I just need a long vacation, part of me wants to go back to college and expand my focus into an area where I wouldn’t have to deal with as many people as I do. When I was younger and I had these issues I would throw together a bare basics pack and go rough it for a week. Since the 40 square mile stretch where I use to go is now a US National Guard artillery range I don’t think that’s much of an option.
I never like to ask for help, but I can’t believe I’m the only one here with this issue(the anxiety issue, not the national guard blasting the taco sauce out of your old stomping grounds). How do you deal with it?
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