Just wrote this in scraproom message board and though I'd copy it here, too.
I think I might have figure out what the problem is with me... why I find it so hard to get my life going and to do a loooooooot of other things.
I think I suffer from rather severe social phobia (or social anxiety disorder). Wow. I have no idea why I haven't bumped into this before. It sure makes sense to me... BIG TIME! I have read about it a fair bit tonight.
It totally explains why I have such difficulties forming friendships etc. I don't think I have ever really considered myself shy and as I read about this, I learned that it doesn't have anything at all to do with shyness. People with social phobia really badly want to interact with other people, but it is super scary. Hmm.. I wonder if I am making any sense. Too many thoughts in my mind.
I suffer sooo badly from loneliness.. in fact I cry about it way too often. I have sometimes been puzzled by the fact that I feel like there are many people out there that would like to be friends with me, but as much as I soooo badly want it, I am really scared of it and kind of hide away. I so wish that people would call me, but I still keep my Skype closed all the time and if my mobile rings... I will happily not answer it or will make Paul answer it. Talking on the phone is scary for me.. I am always nervous that I will sound really stupid or will all of a sudden run out of things to say and won't know what to do then... or that I won't understand something, if the conversation is in english. worry, worry, worry.
I do think I have had this for a long time and I am pretty sure it has started from having such rough time being bullied at school. I think that since moving here to Australia, it has gotten even worse. The social isolation has been so intense.
This is kind of exciting though as now that I know about this, I can really start fixing it!
But reading this really quite scared me as I ticked a lot of the boxes:
"If social phobia is left untreated Catherine says," The sufferer may end up single, less educated, financially dependent or less well off. They may also go on to develop additional psychiatric disorders such as alcoholism. The very worst case scenario is they may commit suicide"."
I'd better really get into fixing this!