So, my therapist is referring me to a psychiatrist who she’ll work with to diagnose me, but currently she is leaning towards a social anxiety disorder with depression.

Firstly, I didn’t realize SAD was an actual disorder so I hadn’t considered it before.

But…I feel really crushed. I’m not trying to use SAD as an excuse or anything, but it feels like conscious brain knows what I should be doing as a communist, but my subconscious instinct over protects me and prevents me from actually being able to be social and organize and such. I just feel like such a useless sack of meat.

If anyone else here has suffered with this, could I ask for some advice, please?

  • Conselheiro
    3·
    18 days ago

    Insert here the pun about “big sad” and SAD

    I’m generally a social anxious person myself, though I’d advise to “do as I say and not as I do” because my main coping mechanism is comical amounts of alcohol lol. There’s some pretty good social anxiety medication out there, but it’s important to use them as a tool and not as a crutch. Social anxiety can be managed through psychological and physical techniques, so over-relying on external chemicals can end up making it worse due to lack of training.

    For my more advisable coping mechanisms, I tend to rehearse interactions well in advance and plan when I am doing “social” carefully. If socialising happens during the specific socialising timeframe I’m ready for, it works out better. Another really important skill is being able to say “no” to things that fall outside of what you’re comfortable with. If anybody asks me to do “social” without prior notice, they’ll probably get a “no I’m busy” unless I’m in a good enough mood. The language of disability can sometimes be useful too, you can say you’re “not feeling well” or “sick” or whatever and people won’t bother you that much. If it’s bad enough for the DSM, it’s bad enough for you as an individual to feel no shame over it.

    For the low-level stuff, find small habits that get you some breathing room. I don’t like most fidget toys because they look like children stuff, so I usually carry a lighter that I can feel with my hands as a subtle way to ground myself. Cheap pens, jewellery, earrings can work too. You can also go drink water or to the bathroom (those two work well together lol) whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, which is also good for your health anyway. If you have any close friends in your organisation you can tell them about it and ask them to provide social cover if you just need to get up and go on a walk randomly. Though I’d advise actually not getting too intimate in politics because it’s a risky proposition. Also, as a smoker, I advise you to not start smoking either tobacco or cannabis. The first might relieve your social anxiety but it’ll obviously ruin your health, while the latter is less destructive but will actually make you more anxious in the long run.

    I’m currently also paying attention to how my food habits impact my mood. Not sure if that’s just a “me” thing, but might be worth taking note if you get more or less socially anxious given what types of food you’ve eaten.

    Edit: also organising doesn’t always have to be about socialising. I’ve done both a lot of really tiring social tasks that required me to interact daily with over a hundred people (worst period of my life!), but also really solitary tasks involving documentation, reading, writing, programming and such. Sadly small organisations kinda require everybody to be a jack-of-all-trades, but a good division of labour when possible can both be more accommodating and actually more effective.