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Congratulations (?): Your diagnosis is GONE! Well... different.
For the next three weeks, I'll be doing what I've been doing this past week - working from 9:00 - 1:30 Monday, and 8:20 - 1 or 2:30 Tuesday through Friday, minus time to see my therapist one day a week. The walk to or from the school takes around 18 minutes tops, and is quite pleasant this time of year. Unfortunately, I hate getting up at 6, but it takes me at least two hours to get myself out the door if I have to eat. To eliminate the dangers of being late I should really have at least three hours. On the other hand, I'm enjoying everything quite a lot every day and coming home cheerful and excited.
Which is why Dr. Petit-Chou the therapist shocked me to a medium level yesterday by suddenly saying "I don't think that you have social phobia."
I've been operating under the belief that that is what I have, more or less, even though it's not quite textbook, for years now. It was the first psychologist I ever saw who suggested it. I didn't like her overmuch, but in retrospect I've come to be very grateful to her for realizing that anxiety and social anxiety were the larger parts of my problem and not depression, when the fairly useless psychiatrist1 I was seeing didn't (even after a month of diagnostic meetings before he prescribed anything). I wouldn't have realized it on my own for quite some time, not having the conceptual framework or mental vocabulary to talk about what was happening in my head at the time.
I was definitely dubious of her diagnosis at first, because although I tend to get anxious about social situations and to avoid unfamiliar people and groups of people and going out in public, my undeniable shyness has never been a matter of fear of these people per se, so much as a basic uninterest and frequent dislike/cynicism. Psychologist1 eventually convinced me that my aversion was really a deep fear that I had covered up to myself, but I suppose the diagnosis still never fit exactly right.
So after close to 9 years of operating under the assumption that I had a weird form of social anxiety, the idea that I don't suddenly... perhaps ought to be a bigger shock. That was what I thought at the time, anyway, that I should feel shock or loss. But instead I immediately remembered my early doubts about the diagnosis, and after a minute of thought and asking for a little elucidation, instead it was like things snapped into place. If I were social phobic, said Dr. Petit-Chou, I would be afraid of the teachers and afraid of interacting with the students instead of excited or happy. My confidence wouldn't have grown so fast and rather than feeling energized or creatively stimulated, I would feel emotionally drained, he said. (Actually I do feel quite physically drained, but then, it's natural after years of full-time layabouting when I'm suddenly bouncing around on my feet five hours a day.)
I know a lot more about myself, about psychology, and about the human brain than I did at age 19, when I accepted the social anxiety theory. It seemed like the only thing that fit then, but as soon as I discarded that hypothesis, the other things I know came together. My shyness, my tendency to observe rather than participate, the physical drain I feel from brand-new situations or crowds, all are explained by the fact that I'm very introverted. Introverts process information differently in the brain in a way that makes them easily over-stimulated. They need calm and solitude - that is, minimal stimulus - in order to let their brains rest and process what's gone on around them.
I'm also an introvert with poor social skills because my parents have poor social skills and I was never particularly well socialized, and had the poor luck to spend almost no time as a child around other children I could relate to, something that's very common with gifted children. Unfortunately for my socialization, I adopted the coping mechanism of retreating into novels really early - like, age 6. And my appetite for fantastic fiction quickly grew immense. I mean, I never really wanted (want, still) to put down a book. Books: so interesting I wish I didn't have to sleep and could just read all the time; other children: boring, irritating, basically impossible to relate to or converse with. It's no wonder that I chose books more or less all the time. And I wasn't isolated or completely without friends, even though they were typically friends who were willing to expend effort in pursuit of me. Once I established for myself that I did enjoy their company, I could put down the books in their favor... sometimes.
I was never wholly without social interaction and social ties, so it wasn't hard to ignore (or hold in contempt) all the "peers" around me in school. I could get interesting conversation from, well, my parents, but also my parents' friends and most importantly, the other adults in the Unitarian Universalist congregation, which provided me a thorough grounding in cultural awareness, world religions, social justice, and secular humanism. Also with people my own age whom it was generally easier to relate to, although I still preferred adults.
And probably the remainder of my problems can be vaguely described as a mutant monstrous school&/or authority&/or paralyzed perfectionism&/or achievement/fear of failure complex. And a tendency to dependence. So... not exactly simple, but it's something? I can't really be relieved, as my problems remain the same, it's just the terminology. On the other hand, it does feel nice to think you have a better understanding of something. On the downside, however, cognitive-behavioral therapy has been shown empirically useful for social anxiety. Gaga knows how it may apply to me now. However, Dr. Petit-Chou did assure me that he thinks it will still be useful to me since I still have those very similar behaviors. And possibly I should order some of these sort of books, but I'm really turned off by the hippy-dippy vibe there.
Which is why Dr. Petit-Chou the therapist shocked me to a medium level yesterday by suddenly saying "I don't think that you have social phobia."
I've been operating under the belief that that is what I have, more or less, even though it's not quite textbook, for years now. It was the first psychologist I ever saw who suggested it. I didn't like her overmuch, but in retrospect I've come to be very grateful to her for realizing that anxiety and social anxiety were the larger parts of my problem and not depression, when the fairly useless psychiatrist1 I was seeing didn't (even after a month of diagnostic meetings before he prescribed anything). I wouldn't have realized it on my own for quite some time, not having the conceptual framework or mental vocabulary to talk about what was happening in my head at the time.
I was definitely dubious of her diagnosis at first, because although I tend to get anxious about social situations and to avoid unfamiliar people and groups of people and going out in public, my undeniable shyness has never been a matter of fear of these people per se, so much as a basic uninterest and frequent dislike/cynicism. Psychologist1 eventually convinced me that my aversion was really a deep fear that I had covered up to myself, but I suppose the diagnosis still never fit exactly right.
So after close to 9 years of operating under the assumption that I had a weird form of social anxiety, the idea that I don't suddenly... perhaps ought to be a bigger shock. That was what I thought at the time, anyway, that I should feel shock or loss. But instead I immediately remembered my early doubts about the diagnosis, and after a minute of thought and asking for a little elucidation, instead it was like things snapped into place. If I were social phobic, said Dr. Petit-Chou, I would be afraid of the teachers and afraid of interacting with the students instead of excited or happy. My confidence wouldn't have grown so fast and rather than feeling energized or creatively stimulated, I would feel emotionally drained, he said. (Actually I do feel quite physically drained, but then, it's natural after years of full-time layabouting when I'm suddenly bouncing around on my feet five hours a day.)
I know a lot more about myself, about psychology, and about the human brain than I did at age 19, when I accepted the social anxiety theory. It seemed like the only thing that fit then, but as soon as I discarded that hypothesis, the other things I know came together. My shyness, my tendency to observe rather than participate, the physical drain I feel from brand-new situations or crowds, all are explained by the fact that I'm very introverted. Introverts process information differently in the brain in a way that makes them easily over-stimulated. They need calm and solitude - that is, minimal stimulus - in order to let their brains rest and process what's gone on around them.
I'm also an introvert with poor social skills because my parents have poor social skills and I was never particularly well socialized, and had the poor luck to spend almost no time as a child around other children I could relate to, something that's very common with gifted children. Unfortunately for my socialization, I adopted the coping mechanism of retreating into novels really early - like, age 6. And my appetite for fantastic fiction quickly grew immense. I mean, I never really wanted (want, still) to put down a book. Books: so interesting I wish I didn't have to sleep and could just read all the time; other children: boring, irritating, basically impossible to relate to or converse with. It's no wonder that I chose books more or less all the time. And I wasn't isolated or completely without friends, even though they were typically friends who were willing to expend effort in pursuit of me. Once I established for myself that I did enjoy their company, I could put down the books in their favor... sometimes.
I was never wholly without social interaction and social ties, so it wasn't hard to ignore (or hold in contempt) all the "peers" around me in school. I could get interesting conversation from, well, my parents, but also my parents' friends and most importantly, the other adults in the Unitarian Universalist congregation, which provided me a thorough grounding in cultural awareness, world religions, social justice, and secular humanism. Also with people my own age whom it was generally easier to relate to, although I still preferred adults.
And probably the remainder of my problems can be vaguely described as a mutant monstrous school&/or authority&/or paralyzed perfectionism&/or achievement/fear of failure complex. And a tendency to dependence. So... not exactly simple, but it's something? I can't really be relieved, as my problems remain the same, it's just the terminology. On the other hand, it does feel nice to think you have a better understanding of something. On the downside, however, cognitive-behavioral therapy has been shown empirically useful for social anxiety. Gaga knows how it may apply to me now. However, Dr. Petit-Chou did assure me that he thinks it will still be useful to me since I still have those very similar behaviors. And possibly I should order some of these sort of books, but I'm really turned off by the hippy-dippy vibe there.
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One place you may want to look at is the Myers-Briggs stuff for, if nothing else, terminology. It's a personality typing system that tot has its problems, but one of the strengths, at least for me was the way it handled introversion and also social relations between different types. I hung around a bit for a few years on an INTJ forum and it was one of the first places I started hearing useful things about introversion, much like the list (so true) posted up-comments.
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