People Are People So Why Should it Be...

In The Anxiety Book, it says that for most people, the anticipation of a stressful situation is worse than the event itself, but for social anxiety sufferers the situation is as bad or even worse than they imagined. I tried to explain that to my counselor. I don't know if she got it. It really is horrible to live out the physical symptoms in front of an audience. Just being the focus of attention is torture in itself.

I liked seeing validation of this in print; SAD is different from shyness and it's different from other anxiety disorders.

I was in a support group through the university's couseling center. I liked talking to people who go through the same things as I do, and I found it easier to practice speeches on them before going in front of the class. I didn't see it helping me make real changes, however, and I wished there was an advanced group for people really driven to defeat their social phobia. I ended up leaving the group because I couldn't afford the time and because I just didn't think it was enough for me. I'm trying to work on this in other ways for now and maybe I'll join up again when I have more time for it.

Where Do I Rate?

I found a nifty little questionairre on this site that I came across: http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/
Check it out!

The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) is a questionnaire developed by Dr. Michael R. Liebowitz, a psychiatrist and researcher.
This measure assesses the way that social phobia plays a role in your life across a variety of situations.

Your score:
40(fear) + 33(avoidance) = 73
You have marked social anxiety.

The scoring scale:
55-65 Moderate social phobia 65-80 Marked social phobia 80-95 Severe social phobia Greater than 95 - Very severe social phobia

According to this quiz my anxiety is noticable to other people. I know this, but maybe this will be useful in tracking my progress. Well, a little help anyway.