Any human interaction was tortuous to me. I felt suicidal,but then I got a job in the City and my life started to changeSocial anxiety disorder seems to be rooted, as Sartre plausibly pointed out, or in the fact that most of what we are is a projection of what others deem of us. We should all be afraid of “the look” of another person because it’s an unfathomable abyss into our very essence. And yet,despite its roots in our imagination, social anxiety is an unremittingly “physical” disease. You can have long-term therapy, and read as much philosophy on the subject as you like,but your body won’t care. The next time you interact with another human being on the bus, at the checkout, or on the phone,waves of adrenaline flood your body all the same, resulting in a racing heart, and faltering voice and glowing red cheeks.
Current scientific opinion attributes all this to serotonin imbalances and overactive amygdalae. There are also genetic factors at work which try to explain why social anxiety tends to flee in families. Whatever the final cause,the stubbornly physical basis of social anxiety suggests that there is no immediate cure. One doctor informed me that it’s just something that has to be lived with. A harsh conclusion indeed, and one that I and other social anxiety sufferers have found to be made much harsher by the nature of the contemporary world.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com