I think i have social anxiety how do i really know?

Here is a self-test to help you determine if you have social anxiety disorder.

If you do, do not freak out about medication. it can change your life in a positive way.

Good luck!

“extremely shy” has gotten repackaged as “social anxiety” it means the same thing. ask for help with your shyness. push slowly into situations that scare you, ask for help and advice from friends and mentors and family and you will gradually get over it. I overcame a great deal of my shyness. don’t listen to the shrinks. listen to yourself. help yourself out and change your life yourself and accept help offered.

put it to the test, engage yourself in a situation that you believe would bring about your shyness, then after the event assess your response and how you feel about it.

For example if talking to an attractive female at a party normally makes you feel self conscious give it a shot. If your response is to not go to the party and cower under your bed hating yourself you might have a problem >.>. If your response is to go and actually talk to said female, no matter how flustered you may be, you’re probably just shy ^.^

I don’t mean that to sound as if I’m making light of your concern. Lots of people have a hard time talking to people they find attractive or even if they think the other person is attracted to them. It’s typically nothing to worry about unless it’s causing and unacceptable degree of internal conflict or keeping you from being yourself.

Something helpful might be to not dwell on attraction just talk to them like you would a friend, nothing is at stake, it’s just a conversation, focus on enjoying it :D

@Ria777‘s answer is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard since… well… the last time I saw @Ria777 give an answer about psychology, honestly.

I have a couple of different kinds of social anxiety. When it started, it wasn’t really that bad, so I was stupid and figured I could get over it by myself, in the ways Ria suggested. Lovely that it worked for her, but in my case, I wound up getting to a point where I could not leave the house and had to be physically forced into the car and taken to the local mental health facility to see a doctor who could prescribe some medication for me.

I imagine I’m a somewhat rare case, but better safe than sorry. I suggest you look at the test @Marina linked to and then take @wonderingwhy‘s advice. If the anxiety you feel interferes with you leading a normal life, then it’s worth seeing someone and getting medication.

@MacBean Your are right. I read that answer and shook my head. Good of you to call them on it.

@MacBean: what would do you to illiterates who don’t want to learn to read? force them into a room and make them read Dick And Jane?

to oversimplify thinking patterns lay at the bottom of fear to go outside. it comes down to, I would rather spend time alone than take the risk that I will endure pain. (you could make a formula showing degree of risk, degree of pain, of effort, of number of failures, etc.) as I said, it has to do with learned thought processes, learned emotions and knowing that you have more than one option. more than two, even.

if you went along with it, then I must assume that on some level you cooperated. I never cooperated with psychiatrists, not one bit. I only ever took meds to get what I wanted and when I got what I wanted, I stopped taking them.

If you have a social anxiety disorder, you can find out from your physical, emotional or mental and behavioral symptoms. Here is a list of these symptoms—

Physical Symptoms: Chest tightness, shortness of breath, blushing, sweating, rapid heart rate, shaking, difficulty in talking, shakiness in voice etc.

Emotional or Mental Symptoms: Negative self-talk, excessive wryness, hypersensitivity to criticism, fear in almost everything, etc.

Behavioral Symptoms: Avoidance, need to escape, passive attitude, fear of intimacy, closed body posture, addictions etc.

@MacBean As a PhD level psychologist, I think @Ria777‘s viewpoint has considerable merit. I wonder why you feel so hostile towards her viewpoint? Could you have misinterpreted her point?

For those helped with meds, great! Others prefer more natural or non-drug methods; some of these people have experienced negative side effects to drugs. One of the more effective non-drug methods is exposure therapy, or without the label, “just do it,” “face your fears,” accept the “what if” possibilities or the like. At the same time, one does want to sympathize or empathize with those undergoing hard times. We do not know quite what other people go through, and suffering is real and sometimes prolonged. Possible causes of anxiety are complex and unexpected. The same sufferer can be both self-saboteur and helpless victim because of multiple or networked causes.

A hard-nosed approach in counseling can be compassionate, or it can be calloused. A tender approach can be essential to helping another recover, or it can enable narcissism or rationalization that prolongs suffering. I suppose the ideal lies in wisdom and personality chemistry of patient and counselor. Maybe a mixture of hard-and-soft is best too, but heaven help the counselor doing the mixing. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/natural-anxiety-relief-therapies-nutrition-and-methods.html