Discussion Social Anxiety Suddenly went away - anyone else experience this?

[broken_stoic]

I'm in my mid-thirties. I have had horrible social anxiety for as long as I can remember. I recently went through a fairly traumatic series of events . . . and one day I realized my social anxiety was gone. Like just gone, as if it had never been there. I'm still awkward, introverted, and a bit shy, but what I would call social anxiety is just gone. I don't know how, I don't know why, but it's like having been an amputee my whole life then suddenly waking up with both legs. It's stayed the same for the past five months. It's persisted through different med changes and even being off meds. Wondering if anyone else has ever had anything like this happen? My current therapist does not focus on social anxiety so she didn't really know about this.

 

[Haematemesis]

if this happened to me id be pissed off

what do you mean this monster was with me during my teenage years when i was supposed have fun and socialize and then vanishes without a reason when im not a teen anymore

 

[The Unanswered Q]

Did go away for about a year, but came back after being isolated for a significant amount of time.

 

[deadstillwalking]

happened to me when I became depersonalized, it hasn't vanished, it's just blocked by my brain but hey! at least I don't crumble during every minor inconvenience anymore

 

[oneeyed]

Reminds me of the movie phenomenon with John Travolta. Get struck by a flash of light and wake up a super genius with telekinetic abilities lol.

 

[vitbar]

if this happened to me id be pissed off

what do you mean this monster was with me during my teenage years when i was supposed have fun and socialize and then vanishes without a reason when im not a teen anymore

Gone to mess with another teenager

 

[Rynalia]

Other problems taking up lots of real estate in your head and are taking up a ton of your resources to deal with, probably.

 

[broken_stoic]

Did go away for about a year, but came back after being isolated for a significant amount of time.

That sucks. I could see that happening. I've been forcing myself to take advantage as much as possible.

happened to me when I became depersonalized, it hasn't vanished, it's just blocked by my brain but hey! at least I don't crumble during every minor inconvenience anymore

See I could see it being something like that . . .

Other problems taking up lots of real estate in your head and are taking up a ton of your resources to deal with, probably.

That is also something I worry about, and I feel like that could legitimately be the case.

I really hope it persists, but I do worry.

 

[vitbar]

I get like this when my depression gets very bad.

Silver lining is that it gave me some perspective on the anxiety. It's like a forced version of the reality checking you do with CBT.

 

[patheticparasite]

Nah, the only anxiety that went away was my fear of spiders when I realized there are worse things (people).

I've always held this belief that if something traumatic happened to me (loss of a close family member), I'd finally muster up the courage to get my life in order. I wonder what's going to happen first: My ctb or their inevitable end.

May I ask what it was you went through?

 

[broken_stoic]

Nah, the only anxiety that went away was my fear of spiders when I realized there are worse things (people).

I've always held this belief that if something traumatic happened to me (loss of a close family member), I'd finally muster up the courage to get my life in order. I wonder what's going to happen first: My ctb or their inevitable end.

May I ask what it was you went through?

People do sometimes make pretty big changes one way or the other after trauma.

So what happened to me is kind of a long story. Shortish version: I had a severe mental breakdown, was "taken in" by some people I thought were friends who gaslit and manipulated me and ended up sending me to a mental hospital when being in that situation caused me to come very close to ctb and I left evidence around my person (I was non-functional lying on the floor). I was too weak to barely move. So after that being in a mental hospital . . . was not good. These friends also promised no matter what happened they would help me and not call the hospital on me, which is the only reason I accepted their "help" in the first place. So all-time low, completely despondent, then forced into a traumatic situation. I'm still not really functional, am one bad move away from being out on the street despite having savings since my brain often just doesn't work right anymore. So yeah, it could well be all the other shit and severe depression are just overpowering my social anxiety, who knows. It could be that spending time in a mental hospital just made me realize there are other things to give a fuck about and that talking to people is just not something to be afraid of on the large scale.

Sorry, not as short as I meant it to be.

 

[bankai]

if this happened to me id be pissed off

what do you mean this monster was with me during my teenage years when i was supposed have fun and socialize and then vanishes without a reason when im not a teen anymore

Well said. I wonder if it even matters if your anxiety disappears when you're older and aren't really around people anymore

 

[foreverfalling]

My social anxiety dropped a lot after a traumatic experience with friends like you. Gaslit and manipulated by a closest friend that I thought I could trust. My other so called friends dropped away as well. I realised I was all by myself and the only one I could rely on was me. If I died tomorrow the only thing I would have done in life was to help those two faced fucks fill up their ego. Well lose one thing, gain another thing. I lost all my so called friends, but some shackles also came off. Not worrying about other people's judgement, because I have no one anyway, and having memento mori in the back of my mind, opened me up to doing things I didn't before, like trying new food shops or getting a hair cut. I still get nervous expecting to talk to people or having new interactions, but the new experiences provided some new foundations for me to work off of.

 

[broken_stoic]

My social anxiety dropped a lot after a traumatic experience with friends like you. Gaslit and manipulated by a closest friend that I thought I could trust. My other so called friends dropped away as well. I realised I was all by myself and the only one I could rely on was me. If I died tomorrow the only thing I would have done in life was to help those two faced fucks fill up their ego. Well lose one thing, gain another thing. I lost all my so called friends, but some shackles also came off. Not worrying about other people's judgement, because I have no one anyway, and having memento mori in the back of my mind, opened me up to doing things I didn't before, like trying new food shops or getting a hair cut. I still get nervous expecting to talk to people or having new interactions, but the new experiences provided some new foundations for me to work off of.

This is amazing, I mean not that you went through that, that's shit and I'm fucking sorry. But it sounds like we have had a very similar situation. I've just had to cut certain people out of my life who were giving me financial support but the costs were too high. I'm afraid of doing it on my own. I don't know how I will, but I fucking will. I've stood on my own most of my life, if I have to do it again I will. Sucks to lose people you thought were friends, but I should have tuned into the red flags a long time ago.