Social Anxiety Disorder

I have a little extra time on my hands here so I'm sitting down with a good cup of coffee, a simple cheese sandwich, and some shredded carrots, to write a blog.

A good friend of mine recently told me about a documentary I should watch. I have, and it was really good!
It's Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive  and I would recomend it to anyone really. It is very honest.

Speaking up about things like mental illnesses is very important, I think, because it is one of those (many) things that you don't understand when you haven't tried it. Simply because it comes from a different perspective on life and on the world. And if nobody is honest about it, certainly, nobody else can possibly even begin to grasp what it is about. When nobody talks about it, things become mystified and are misinterpreted.

Many (!) suffer from a mental illness - and insanity may be a lot more normal than it is commonly understood to be.
To me this makes perfect sense... When I think of the many ways in which we can get ill at any point in time during our existence, and how everybody has something "wrong" with them, I'm really not surprised.
Especially not considering the complexity of the human brain and of the functions it has to carry out. To me it's really more of a wonder that well-functioning brains exist at all.
Just think about it - our brains are able to store memories! Just like some computer. Only, the brain controls us a lot better then we control it. And we are 100% dependent on it. And the memory-thing is only a small fraction of its tasks. Plus, all of its signaling is done through electric potentials. Also, the amount of nerve cells having to function as one network in contact with all of the other systems of a body... is astonishing. But then again it really has taken a very (!) long time to develop this system...
And now I've gone all "fascinated biology student" on you here, so moving on!

The documentary...
I also think it is important to inform people of the "taboo" illnesses in order to let young people with a potential disorder know that it is "normal". Just like we are able to recognize symptoms of other diseases, a virus or an ulcer or diabetes or something, it could be of great help if a more common knowledge about mental illnesses existed.

And now to the obvious point: myself!
Growing up I was not aware that I had a problem. Well, I did feel like (I had) a problem, but to me the problem was more something in the lines of being weird, wrong, not good enough, and always being in the way.
Today when I enter a website about Social Anxiety (which I have done only after my doctor had diagnosed me) it is so obvious to me that I have this disorder because I recognize every word as if they were written about me. If someone had noticed my symptoms when I was younger (the symptoms were there!) I could have been diagnosed, and maybe have received treatment, much much earlier!

To me a diagnosis is important. Knowing that my state is not unheard of, knowing that professionals have answers to some of the questions, knowing that I am not just useless but actually ill, knowing that this disorder must be taken into consideration when I make decisions about my life and my plans.

I didn't realize that I might be ill until I somehow heard about social anxiety somewhere when I was about 16 or so. I remember thinking that I actually fit the profile pretty well. But I think I thought that being mentally ill was only something that applied to the nutcases in the hospital. Actually, I had at that point already spent a long time in the hospital being treated for an eating disorder. But back then that was something different if you asked me. (Now I see that my anorexia was caused by exactly what is causing my depression, anxiety, and stress today.) Anyway, the thought occurred to me then but because I thought it was a lot less common, I didn't think I could be ill.
And I must say that having a name for all the fears and panic and what not does help me.

For example, I remember being so ashamed of the fact that I couldn't make myself pick up the phone and call someone because I was afraid of talking to them. It made me feel completely useless and lowered my self-esteem even more (if possible).
Now I know that a feeling like that is a reaction controlled by my phobia, that it is irrational, and that I need to work with it. And also that it is usually not as bad as I fear!