Social Anxiety Disorder

Through the years of being a asocial worker I have had the privilege of working with many people. I have had a variety of case loads dealing with child protection, vulnerable adult investigations, case management of people with traumatic head injuries and also case management of people with mental illness. Although some of the clients have been resistive to change, I have found that everyone, no matter what their mental they want to be accepted by others and crave a life of happiness.

One of the more challenging groups that I have dealt with are people with social anxiety disorder. This disorder often referred to as fear of the marketplace, affects people of all ages, socio economic backgrounds and ethnicity. Unlike many disorders that manifest at puberty or young adulthood, social anxiety disorder can start at any age and it can be brought on by a number of different causes.

The group meetings that I held for people with social anxiety disorder were for adults. Social anxiety for adolescents involves many different contributing factors and I do not like treating teenagers with adults.

The adults in my group ranged in age from late twenties to early fifties. Some of the group members had been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder since they were teenagers and others had been recently diagnosed. One woman had been the vice president of a major advertising company.

She was in her late forties and had worked her way up through the ranks. She was an expert at giving presentations on ad campaigns and was considered a leader in her field. She did seminars for new recruits within her company and had also presented at a national convention. Two years ago she began going through menopause. She was embarrassed by her hot flashes and the profuse sweating that followed them, as well as her unpredictable and heavy menstrual flow.

She began isolating in her apartment and within six months she had so much anxiety at the thought of leaving her apartment that she did not go. She broke off all ties with friends and relatives, quit her job and rarely answered her phone or door.

Her sister was finally able to convince her to get help and that is how she found her way into my group. We are not sure what brought on her social anxiety disorder. I speculate it was a combination of hormonal changes, extreme fatigue and an adverse reaction to the synthetic hormones that had been prescribed for her.

There is hope for those that suffer from this disorder. Family members and friends need to be patient with the person and recognize that their fears are very real to them and that the anxiety they feel will cause them some physical reactions. The worse thing you can do is to ignore the person’s fears. Even if the fears seem unfounded to you, they are very real to the person experiencing them.

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