Hello. I am someone diagnosed with schizophrenia. I am sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. I am sorry if I bother anyone.
Among my hallucinations/delusions, I have a very severe one that I am always bothering people. Not just times where you might be able to realistically justify I might actually be bothering someone, but, for example, just walking by someone causes me to go into an anxiety attack for a good 30 minutes. I am always recalling the very few times I have spoken and regretting it. Most likely, the people involved in those times do not even remember me or the incident in question.
Even getting services from people I am paying causes me a great deal of anxiety. Going to the grocery store is an act of psychological torture for me. Therapist and doctors, I am all convinced I am bothering them. The fact that I managed to seek help for my problems is honestly a huge victory for me, but it was only because it was such a necessity that I forced myself. The therapy sessions did not help much, because this particular therapist did not help put my mind at ease much that I was not bothering them and I was so socially awkward that I would be completely incapable of coming up with something to say for several seconds before the therapist would say something. The therapist ended up telling me that if "I do not have anything to talk about I do not need to come." Realistically, they were probably being kind to me and offering me a way to save money, but I took it to mean I had been bothering them and I completely stopped going, instead of going less often, which is probably what they had meant.
I have thought about looking for a therapist who is more suited for dealing with social anxiety, but now that I have prescriptions for the problems I was having that have helped reduce my problems somewhat, I am having trouble forcing myself to contact another one. I have looked at tens of them and have written up what I would send them through their "contact me" page, but have been completely unable to actually send it.
This extends online. I have been thinking of posting something here for around a year but have been completely unable to bring myself to do it. The only reason I am posting this now is because of a recent incident that has aggravated me (I do not really want to talk about it publicly, I am sorry.) While typing this, my hands are shivering and I am having a nervous breakdown. Probably after I post it, I will feel a sense of relief for a few minutes before quickly going back into panic mode. To be honest, this will probably end up being my only post, because I will be so afraid I am bothering you all that I will be completely incapable of posting anything else, at least, under this name. I am sorry if that happens.
My only social circle is a very small group of online friends who I happened to know from before my schizophrenia symptoms really started kicking in. Luckily, we still talk to each other in a small chat. If that were ever to disappear, I would become completely isolated. But, I tend to refrain myself a lot because I am so afraid I am bothering them. This is made worse in that I am afraid that if I bother them too much, I will lose them, which also means I will lose my last line of social contact.
Like I said, this is a chat situation. Only one of them I regularly talk to in one on one chats, so that one person is the only one I talk to in a private context. This is probably almost exclusively my fault. I tend to not take initiative in conversation and only speak back when the other person says something. Most of my replies are probably said in a weird way or lackluster. Eventually, they probably either feel like I do not like talking to them or they just get bored of me.
Even something as simple as going on a Chess or Shogi site where I do not really need to socialize with people causes this. If I win, I am afraid that I will have bothered the person by not being helpful in helping them improve. If I lose, I am afraid I will have bothered the person by not being interesting to play against and wasting their time. So I do not go at all. This extends to all of my hobbies.
I do not have any real "family." The people I was unfortunate enough to have been born to were crazy abusive. Most of my siblings were not really mean or abusive, but due to our household being one where we were abused, we did not really end up connecting when we were growing up and have not stayed in touch. I have thought of contacting them and trying to connect, but, once again, I feel like I will be bothering them.
I rarely ever met my extended family, but on the occasions I did, they were just as emotionally abusive as the people I was born to, so I feel like they would end up being just as physically and sexually abusive as well. Even if they were not, they were a bit unpleasant and even putting that aside, I would have the same problem contacting them as I have my siblings.
I have never had any friendly physical contact. Growing up, the people I was born to only ever touched me in hurtful ways and made it clear they hated me. The closest I have had is a handshake in a couple of situations when being forced to greet someone out of necessity. And I became obsessed that they were bothered by how bad my hand felt or by how sweaty I was due to the social interaction or they were bothered by my nail art or by how bad or lackluster my greeting was, etc.
It probably goes without saying, but my lack of social interaction means I am completely inexperienced. I do not really know how to talk to people or how to say what I want. This is probably made worse by my other symptoms. This inability to express myself just adds more to my fears.
As I said, this is all a delusion, so unfortunately, someone telling me I do not bother them does not particularly help me. Even though I realize it is a delusion I am completely incapable of stopping it or ignoring it. Part of this is because of how realistic it is compared to some of my other delusions. In reality, some people will get bothered by others (not just me.) So realistically speaking, at some point, I probably will actually bother someone. But I am completely incapable of telling when such situations might realistically happen and so I end up just being anxious at all times. But the fact that it is something that could realistically happen means I cannot completely ignore it.
Also, it does not escape my notice that this mentality of mine and my avoidance might actually bother people as well (e.g. it might be seen as insulting that I think they would be bothered, they might feel offended that I am so terse when talking to them or that I just am completely silent and only give a small acknowledgement.) This fact also causes me more anxiety, giving me even more reason to avoid social interactions in the first place.
I think a lot of people tend to take my quietness as being me not liking to socializing and leave me alone, but it is the opposite. I desperately want to be involved in some type of social contact. I desperately want to have some form of physical contact. I want to be able to feel safe talking to someone and not like I will be bothering them with every word that comes out of my mouth. I am depressingly lonely.
I am sorry this is so long and I am sorry if it has bothered anyone. I will try to stay and post more here, but I cannot promise I will. As I said, it is very likely this will end up being my only post. I might end up replying to a few posts, just because if I didn't, I would feel like I am bothering the person. I am sorry.
Submitted May 26, 2019 at 08:17AM by DanceOfTheSparrow http://bit.ly/2Ez2xME
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