Hi,
I'm 19 and have social phobia and totally understand what your son is going
through. First of all you need to make sure you are there for him to talk
to about this problem. I always feel better whenever I talk to my mom and
she just listens. I really don't like it whenever she tells me it's "all in
my head" and that I'm just like everyone else though, so steer clear of
that. The thing is that it is hard for other people to imagine what it's
like to have social phobia, and how it affects your life. They may think
"what's so hard about talking?" That's what my parents say to me all the
time, so I know it's hard for them to understand it. The thing is it's hard
for me to understand it too. I know it's not normal, and I'm not happy
about it, but it's very hard to overcome.
I got to the point where I really couldn't handle it anymore and begged my
parents to let me see a psychologist. They finally agreed, and I really
think it would have helped alot if I would have stuck with it. She
explained the process she used like this:
whenever you enter a room for the first time and something smells bad, you
will notice at first, but everytime after that you notice it less and less
until you barely notice it at all. This is the same type of thing that
happens whenever you gradually expose yourself to frightening situations -
in this case social situations. So we sat down and built a hierarchy of the
types of social situations that frightened me 0 pts being no fear and 100
being as fearful as I could possibly imagine. From there I set a goal
everyweek working from the bottom up, working on that particular situation
until I felt I had mastered it. It actually did seem to be working, but
unfortunately my parents quit paying for my visits. In the time that I was
seeing the psychologist, I also decided to see a psychiatrist who prescribed
me celexa. Of couse she started me out slowly with a small dose to make
sure there were no side effects and then upped it. I really feel better,
since I've been taking it, and my parents said I even act alot friendlier.
I know I feel less depressed and like I'm more in control of my social
situations.
Some may view the medication as simply a "quick fix", but, according to my
psychologist, with cognitive therapy alongside it, there's a slight chance
that the medicine may not be needed later in life. In that case the
medicine would be used only as a starter, just to get the person into the
social situation. It is really easy to just decide to take the medicine
since it works so well, but it really is best to get the cognitive therapy
too.
Another option is group therapy. In this case he could meet other people
with the same worries and concerns as he has, and learn how to face those
problems with the support of each other. I haven’t actually tried this
myself, but I really think it would show a lot of good results.
Of couse none of it will work if your son doesn't agree to it, so you should
really talk to him about it first.
If he doesn’t agree to any of that, you might consider talking to him about
helping other people. I find that if I’m concentrating on helping others,
that I spend less time worrying about my own problem and it helps me to feel
normal.
I really hope that this helps.
--- carrie







>From: "jonmic1 <jonmic1@...>" <jonmic1@...>
>Reply-To: SocialFitnessForum@yahoogroups.com
>To: SocialFitnessForum@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [SocialFitnessForum] need help
>Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 04:21:28 -0000
>
>My son is 21 and suffers from social phobia. He drives around and
>leves the house and all that. But cannot seem to deal with people,
>does not want a job because he can't handle the interview process. I
>quess what I'm asking does anyone have any advise on the parents as t
>owhat are some tips. We love him and right now totally support him
>financially. Thank you in advance
>


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