Is Medication Necessary for Social Anxiety?
As somebody who used to suffer from social anxiety, I attempted a variety of strategies to help the problem, such as medicine.
But in my opinion, making use of medicine to cope with anxiety is a little like having a shotgun to remove bugs in your kitchen area: it might help with the insect trouble (a bit), however the collateral harm will create a scenario that's significantly worse compared to what you began with.
Clearly, my experiences with medicine for anxiety weren't really beneficial.
It's true i always would frequently feel a bit "out of it" in social situations, which resulted in a small improvement in my degree of anxiety, however the drugs also robbed me a vast amount of of my identity, and made me really feel exhausted and sluggish quite a lot of the time.
For instance, I've never ever truly been a "snooze individual.
" I am inclined to have plenty of energy throughout the day, and if I made a decision to take an afternoon nap right now, I would most likely find it tough to fall asleep.
But again when I used to be on social anxiety drugs I Needed to nap each and every day.
Frequently, I'd sleep 10 or even more hrs during the night, and once the afternoon rolled around, I'd still find it difficult to keep awake and required a nap for a minimum of 2 hours.
And in many cases when I could remain alert, I started to really feel exhausted and apathetic more often than not.
I didn't have a lot of energy to accomplish anything at all -- and i also felt way too apathetic to even care! But seriously, the continual fatigue brought on by the medicine was an issue for me, and although my anxiety circumstance was improving somewhat, at the end of the day, I was essentially sleep-walking through my entire life like some type of zombie.
And then there had been also other side effects and signs and symptoms of the anxiety medicine that greatly afflicted my entire life.
For instance, I started to see that my memory was diminishing.
I'd often had a great memory, but after six months on the drugs I started having difficulties remembering people's names, telephone numbers, even family members birthdays and anniversaries.
I'm sure you get the concept: anxiety drugs was hardly successful to me, and triggered numerous other unbearable issues that it truly wasn't worthwhile.
But clearly there was additional problems brought on by using the medicine -- one which was much less apparent to me back then, but is quite obvious now: by relying on medicine for the issue, I'd raised it to the status of a "medical problem.
" By accepting that my social anxiety became a disease, I unconsciously acknowledged the role of "sufferer," making me believe that I became helpless to improve it.
The reality is, I was by no means helpless over my social anxiety, nor is anybody else.
Social anxiety is caused by our behavior -- especially our thinking behaviors.
And improving upon these habits is really the only strategy to improve social anxiety.
Once we realize that we're included in the entire process of producing the issue, we enable ourselves to get rid of it However, this doesn't imply that you need to find fault with yourself due to the way you are feeling.
Fault has absolutely nothing related to it.
We ought to simply take accountability for the social anxiety, by acknowledging our part in producing it and sustaining it.
Whenever we make an effort to use drugs for social anxiety, it creates feelings of failure and victimization.
This can lead to a way of thinking that social anxiety is something that "happens to us," not "something we take part in developing.
" And Let me tell you from knowledge that improving upon social anxiety is virtually impossible so long as we're feeling like a sufferer.
But in my opinion, making use of medicine to cope with anxiety is a little like having a shotgun to remove bugs in your kitchen area: it might help with the insect trouble (a bit), however the collateral harm will create a scenario that's significantly worse compared to what you began with.
Clearly, my experiences with medicine for anxiety weren't really beneficial.
It's true i always would frequently feel a bit "out of it" in social situations, which resulted in a small improvement in my degree of anxiety, however the drugs also robbed me a vast amount of of my identity, and made me really feel exhausted and sluggish quite a lot of the time.
For instance, I've never ever truly been a "snooze individual.
" I am inclined to have plenty of energy throughout the day, and if I made a decision to take an afternoon nap right now, I would most likely find it tough to fall asleep.
But again when I used to be on social anxiety drugs I Needed to nap each and every day.
Frequently, I'd sleep 10 or even more hrs during the night, and once the afternoon rolled around, I'd still find it difficult to keep awake and required a nap for a minimum of 2 hours.
And in many cases when I could remain alert, I started to really feel exhausted and apathetic more often than not.
I didn't have a lot of energy to accomplish anything at all -- and i also felt way too apathetic to even care! But seriously, the continual fatigue brought on by the medicine was an issue for me, and although my anxiety circumstance was improving somewhat, at the end of the day, I was essentially sleep-walking through my entire life like some type of zombie.
And then there had been also other side effects and signs and symptoms of the anxiety medicine that greatly afflicted my entire life.
For instance, I started to see that my memory was diminishing.
I'd often had a great memory, but after six months on the drugs I started having difficulties remembering people's names, telephone numbers, even family members birthdays and anniversaries.
I'm sure you get the concept: anxiety drugs was hardly successful to me, and triggered numerous other unbearable issues that it truly wasn't worthwhile.
But clearly there was additional problems brought on by using the medicine -- one which was much less apparent to me back then, but is quite obvious now: by relying on medicine for the issue, I'd raised it to the status of a "medical problem.
" By accepting that my social anxiety became a disease, I unconsciously acknowledged the role of "sufferer," making me believe that I became helpless to improve it.
The reality is, I was by no means helpless over my social anxiety, nor is anybody else.
Social anxiety is caused by our behavior -- especially our thinking behaviors.
And improving upon these habits is really the only strategy to improve social anxiety.
Once we realize that we're included in the entire process of producing the issue, we enable ourselves to get rid of it However, this doesn't imply that you need to find fault with yourself due to the way you are feeling.
Fault has absolutely nothing related to it.
We ought to simply take accountability for the social anxiety, by acknowledging our part in producing it and sustaining it.
Whenever we make an effort to use drugs for social anxiety, it creates feelings of failure and victimization.
This can lead to a way of thinking that social anxiety is something that "happens to us," not "something we take part in developing.
" And Let me tell you from knowledge that improving upon social anxiety is virtually impossible so long as we're feeling like a sufferer.
