I think its a social anxiety thing with me, In real life I have no friends, sure I have my other half but apart from her I have no one. I get on well with alot of you guys on here, just in real life its a major problem.

Anyone else in the same sort of situation?

I'm in the same boat as you. My husband is my only true friend. I think mine is social anxiety too. For me I think it's a trust issue. I have always been the type of person who would only have one best friend at a time. I know having all these personality traits (as lucinda calls them) is the reason why. I get my feelings hurt real easy. The last time I tried to make friends was with a women from my church. Things were great for awhile. Then she came to me one day and ask me to speak at a teen conference. I did'nt know how to say no without "hurting her feelings". She knew I had anxiety&depression. I think she really just did'nt understand how bad it was. I did not speak at the conference. Something else happened between our kids. To make a long story short...We basicly are like hey..how are you? at church. It's been awkward since my husband is the pastor.
You know how they say you learn from your mistakes...well what I learned was I have to be on the same level with everybody at church. I have to stay kind of neutral with things because of being the pastors wife. Not that..that's a bad thing. It just helpes so if someone comes to me or my husband to talk. okay..I will stop rambling on and on now.

i have one friend who visits me rarely. been dealing with panic disorder and depression on and off for eons now.
this time when it all hit, it hit hard, fast and blinded me in a few ways. i wish i had a companion who i could talk to about all of this.

quote:

Originally posted by ShelbyFae:
i have one friend who visits me rarely. been dealing with panic disorder and depression on and off for eons now.
this time when it all hit, it hit hard, fast and blinded me in a few ways. i wish i had a companion who i could talk to about all of this.

I darn't talk to my OH about it, its the whole strong male thning you know

I was diagnosed with Social Anx. Disorder 5 years ago. I did ok in therapy, removing myself from the surrounind stress instead of learning the skills to cope helped short term, but in my new invironment, as stress levels grew with work etc. I relapsed and once again had very few friends due to avoidance. The few I did have were TOXIC friends (do you know what those are?) I have since broke away from the toxic people but am having trouble making friends with normal people except my boyfriend who is somewhat supportive/understanding of my anxieties.

I have social anxiety along with other anxieties. My "friend list" dwindled down to three once I stopped dealing with TOXIC friends.Of these three, only one has been to my house and me to hers.I don't even talk to the few that I do have often!People have busy lives and I understand that.I'm just happy that I can talk to them whenever possible.

There are lots of people out there guys who are wonderful, loving, caring, trustworthy, and worth knowing!! Keep your eyes open!!! Everyone needs good friends!!!!

I feel ya. I had some friends, but b/c I slept with one of them and another was an exboyfriend, my csi worker (counselor that comes to my house 2x a week to help me with coping skills etc) said I had to write them off as they make my hubby feel insecure (keep in mind hubby used to abuse me and is now emotionally abusing me again) so now i have no one but my hubby...yeah.

Hey...I had an idea for this problem. Notice how it is really comfortable for all of us to chat with one another? We feel accepted here and obviously like we have a lot of the same obstacles to overcome. Another reason is because it is online I think.

Maybe the step in between would be to join a local support group for anxiety/depression. That way you could make friends that you could meet face to face with and develop relationships with where the social anxiety won't be as bad. Might be a good way to make the transition to getting back out in the social arena.

Hello FrancesL - I did not know these type of support groups existed. I'm going to look for one. I live in a relatively small town, so I don't know if an anxiety group exists here. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

Often I feel friendless and alone. I work long hours and go to the gym, and am new to this area and feel like a stranger in a strange land-I don't really fit in here in the South- I'm vegetarian, non-smoker, not overweight, don't go to church, and I'm liberal to boot so I feel left out and weird and different. "You're one of those d* yankees" I heard recently, it hurts. I'm trying to make friends. I love peopple and desperately want to have a personal connection with a social network. Sometimes I buy expensive gifts for acquaintences since I like giving gifts and hope they will like me then feel embarassed. It's hard to be social with this condition but the program is helping. I feel alone often like I'm in a dark room with no one in it. I think many of you guys are in here with me, though. That helps!

Hey Cuttingirl,

Someone else posted this link before and that's where I got it. It lists support groups in different areas.

http://www.adaa.org/GettingHelp/SupportGroups.asp

What part of the south are you in? I'm near Houston, TX...lived here the majority of my life. Did live in NYC for a brief time...so I know what you mean by culture shock. I was 18, moved there for modeling and had a part time job waitressing. (Let's face it..unless you are Tyra or something it really doesn't pay the bills...especially NYC bills. )

People actually thought I was stupid because I have a southern accent! One of the cooks overheard me on the phone with my mom asking if she could send me some money and he replied, "Why don't you sell one of your horses, aren't they worth a lot of money." I was thinking to myself...and you think I'M stupid??
Yeah...not eating meat, liberal...pack it up girlfriend..it's a dog eat dog world down here. My sis actually moved to Chicago for school and came back a lib..so you can imagine how much fun we have on holidays with a family with 6 kids, everyone republican except her!

Sorry that people are making you feel uncomfortable. I've lost so much weight lately everyone keeps making the comment "You are looking really skinny, you have to stop losing weight." I think...how would you feel if I said, "Man, you really are packin on the pounds there...what do you do, eat ice cream every night before you go to bed?? You sure are getting fat!"
Que sera, sera.
Anyway...if you lived close by, I'd hang out with you, liberal vegeterian and all!!! I hope you find a group near by.

I also have very few friends. I am getting better at the whole socializing thing. I had friends back in school (I'm 33 now) and I still email them occasionally. My bfriend has friends and I associate with them although I used to try to distance myself I am getting better. I realized that friendship is not perfect and the definition in my head may not be accurate. All I can do is try to be there for other people. I also tend to get hurt easily so I tend to be standoffish because of that.

But its funny when I realized one day that just because someone isn't my bestest friend in the world doesn't mean that they are not a friend. And there are different types of friends. My bfriend has a lot of friends and they mean the world to him. I think more so than I do at times.