Hi, this ended up as being a pretty long brick wall of text... i wrote a lot of details that are not really necessary and its maybe a bit personal but i just wanted to write it all down on paper to try to give you get a better understanding of the reason for my problems. You dont need to read it all, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. And also this story is pretty weird 
I found out some years ago that there is something called social anxiety, and when I saw the list of symptoms I saw that about 90% was true about how I think. I have always thought I was just different from others for no special reason, but I know I could have a different normal personality without my anxiety, and my anxiety stops me from doing so many things in my life, I know my overall quality of life would be so much better without it so I really want to change that. And that takes time.
Also I mostly have anxiety when talking in groups, i feel pretty comfortable talking with just one person at time even if its someone i dont know.
So I am almost 21 years old, living in Norway... I am super kind, im not unconfident with how i look, but im afraid to make mistakes and im very careful with what i do, and im really too careful overall. Im especially careful of what my family thinks of me and that has caused many problems for me because its turned into anxiety.
I think I had a pretty good childhood and Ive been told that I'm shy even since I was 5-6 years. Since ive been shy from such a young age I thought maybe theres something that i got scared of as little or something, but I havent thought much about the reason. It was not much of a problem for me, I was just a little more quiet and careful than other kids and I made many good friends in the first years of school.
When I was 10, my parents got divorced and I had to move with my 3 brothers and my sister with my mother from city A (I'll just call it that) to city B (where my mother was born and family is from). I had already changed school once before this so I thought it would not be a big problem to make new friends again. But this is when I started to get problems with talking to people. This city had a quite different dialect than from where I'm born, and I was feeling very embarrassed to talk in class because I thought I sound strange. I made a few good friends quickly but now I was becoming more and more afraid to talk to anyone outside my family. Then I started talking with a very low voice and later almost whispering. I did not say a word in class out loud after that, but I was doing very well in all subjects.
I started playing video games in most of my free time, and I did not really know what being social was, or why it would be good for me. For example my class was going one a one-week trip to a place and it costed a little amount of money, but I remember that I actually was more interested in buying some game instead for that money. I couldn't anyway, and that was a fun trip. But maybe I was becoming antisocial. My 2,5 years younger brother is the complete opposite of me, very social and outgoing. So he was starting to hang out with my friends more than I did, and I remembered that when i was hanging out with them and my brother, I just decided to "give up" on being a talkative guy and let my brother be that type. And thats how it went. This is when I was starting to understand that there's a point of being social, but I felt it was too late to change myself or something.
When I was about to start grade 9 I wanted to move back to city A, even though I'm much more close to my mother.. but anyway I did and I moved in with my father and his girlfriend (who is an annoying piece of woman.. none of my ciblings get along well with her). Back in this city A i have one really good friend who I've known since I was 6 and I think he was the main reason for why I wanted to move back. I continued to be super quiet in class and I was not making any other friends that I was spending time with in my spare time. He is however this extremely popular guy and the class" clown with not even a hint of being shy. I was just one of his maybe 100 friends so i was gradually going back to staying at home playing games or other things. I was almost never going outside the house in my free time so in weekends for example my father sometimes said I should go for a walk in the forest... I felt like a loser walking around there, that's not what a teenager should be doing in weekends. Anyway I guess it's better than taking drugs.
Then two years later I wanted to move back to my mother and my siblings, and I did. I started going to class again with my old friends there but I was becoming more and more shy. And this time I was completely giving up on making more friends since i had been moving to new places and classes all the time, i knew I would be moving away from them soon. So I'm starting highschool and we moved to a new city nearby. I did not feel I fit in with he new class, there was only one guy who i would talk to sometimes. In recess i was often eating my lunch alone downstairs at the toilet, because i had nowhere else to go. I was also often visiting my grandmother who lived at the retirement center right next to school to eat there. Nobody in my class knew about this.
My mother had survived cancer two times already at his point (when I moved to
my father she was healthy, but I regret moving there now a little) but she had got cancer for the third time, and now she was slowly getting sick. She could not take care of us alone anymore so we moved in with my uncle (my mothers brother) and his wife.
My uncle is a boss of a pretty big company, a bitter perfectionist and he's as cold as steel. He is a workaholic, his wife says he never takes holidays because he likes to work, but what is the point of working then.. he keeps building on their house and there is no end to his projects. And his wife want to divorce him but she decided not to because it would be a shame to her status/family. He has no friends other than work colleagues too. My two older brothers were not allowed inside the house because one of them took a picture of him when he wasnt prepared. Me and my two younger siblings living there felt like living in prison, none of us dared to bring any friends home. I still did ok in school, but I was starting to feel depressed. Then at the end of the schoolyear my mother died... I was devastated. I dont remember much of that summer,,,
I still lived with my uncle, until Christmas time, when they had had enough of us.
They said we were not giving anythin back to them, and we did not want to. One more morning I woke up from hearing him roar in the basement, he ran around asking who had left a banana on the floor. My little brother was found as the "guilty" one and he was yelling at him for at least 3 minutes and spitting him in the face as he was yelling. I don't know if that's normal behavior for a 40 year old, but it was obvious that he had been charging up some passive-aggressive anger for a long time. So we were having a meeting with them and they said we had to get out before Christmas, (2 weeks). I was not feeling sorry to leave them.
The reason I hate him most is because he said something to my mother that last year about that she was not giving us a proper upbringing because we were moving around many places etc. What kind of person can say that to a dying mother, she did her best.
He must be psychopathic in some way, and none of his siblings barely have any contact with him. Anyway we were ordered out of the castle, my two younger siblings decided to move back to my father. I did not want to move again, as I was getting exhausted of everything changing around me, and I didn't want to move away from the few friends I had left there.
So I wanted to start looking for an apartment, but I couldn't get one quickly enough so my aunt let me stay at her house for a little while. Living there was ok but even more lonely, far out on the countryside and I had to take bus and train to school. I suspect she is also having some social anxiety, shes a very quiet type and she didn't want to have a wedding even though she's married because "it's not a big deal". I can't talk to her about personal things, we are like two magnetic fields of the same type.
After about 2 months i finally found an apartment near the school and i moved in just a day after turning 18. Now my best friend there was too busy (2 Jobs and a gf) and i only hung around with one guy sometimes, a rude selfish guy who i didnt really want to be around with, but he sometimes came visiting when he wanted (i never called him), and im too weak to say i dont want to be with him, but i guess it was better than living alone completely.
I was doing fine living alone, but i always have a habit of postponing everything until the last possible moment. I did however surive through the rest of the schoolyear with only missing a few grades, and in summer I got a job at a supermarked as a cashier. I never thought i could be a person doing the tasks of a cashier, but i wanted to try it to practice talking to people without being shy and i needed an income to pay for my appartment and food. The work went well and i was getting used to talking to strangers all day, i begun to feel comfortable with talking again. I worked like crazy that summer, and got some fat paychecks. But i did not spend the extra money on anything more than food. As a person im careful with everything, but also with spending money. I know today that its not healthy to never buy new clothes, movie or any things that make me feel better, but i did not think about that at this time.
I started my third and last year of highschool, another new class and school. With becoming more condfident about talking i thought "this is the year i will change everything" and make friends with everyone in class. But i started in a school far away from where i live and i wanted to change it, so i got the option after the first week to change to a school very close to where my appartment is, and i did. But on the first day of school i saw everyone had already gotten to know eachother pretty well, and i was as usual the new guy in class, i didnt even try. So i went back to the usual enjoying my lunches at the toilet and using the school computers for msn in breaks. I had started talking to two girls.. one from China and the other from South Korea (coincidently found on skype search, why theyre asian... i prefer exotic girls i guess) and the chinese girl became very good friends with me and i finally had someone to talk to about my problems.
Life was flowing slowly and as usual, until some time in autumn when the owner of my appartment said i had to move out (she was going to have a baby, and they needed the appartment for extra space), with just some weeks notice. (I couldnt move to my father in the middle of the schoolyear) As usual i was postponing whats important for some weeks before i started looking for an appartment. And all the ones i found were really expensive, so they day when i had to move out was coming closer, and then.... i had to move out and check in on a hotel. I felt pretty weird going to school while my only home was a hotel but it was what i had to do. Staying there was quite expensive so i had to work everyday after school, and this is when i started to be absent from a lot of classes.
Finally after i had stayed at the hotel for two weeks, i found an affordable appartment in the newspaper, a place that could best be described as a ghost town on the countryside. I called the owner and later i had an "interview" with her. There was just one other guy wanting to rent the appartment, and she said she couldnt let me down because i was practically homeless. So i was saved for a while.
Now it was winter, and i was feeling more depressed again. I felt disgusting..... i didnt want to spend money on a washing maching so i didnt wash my clothes for 2 months, i had to rotate on which ones had been used the most and i didnt shower more than 1-2 times a week (even though i dont sweat much at this time, its pretty disgusting). One night i woke up by hearing something crawling in a bag in the kitchen... at first i was paralyzed but i then got the courage to get up and turn on the light, then i rememberd i had not gone outside with the trash bag for more than a week. In the bag i saw lots of small bugs feasting on the food, i had to go get the vaccum cleaner and use it on the floor as they were crawling around on the floor too..... :S i felt like an insane person.
Now i didnt go to school more than half of the days, but i did go to work almost every evening, because i did not feel there was any reason to go to school anymore. I had absolutely no idea what i would study anyway.
Often when i woke up, i just laid there.... for hours, thinking about the meaning of life and death. I could have gotten a scholarship from my school for living costs because i live bymyself, about 6000$. I just needed to go to a few more classes a week, but i still didnt want to.
I was completely apathic. I did not attend enough classes to get a single grade for the last counting semester, but i was pretty close. So the last schoolyear was a complete waste, i could have just quit the first day. But i dont think i thinking clearly anymore. The only thing i cared about now was that as long as im alive, things were ok.
But i had at least one positive experience. All i did now was just going to school if i could get up in the morning and work after that. I was talking to that chinese girl pretty much all the time i spent at home. I couldnt stop talking to her, some days we talked up to 10 hours straight.
She was the one person in the world i could talk to about everything, so that made me feel better. I had always liked her, but i didnt ever think she would be interested in me. She was also in a similar situation as mine, she had to move out by herself when she was 14 because of family problems (shes 2 years older than me) So she is a very independant woman. She has blue eyes (Chinese/Japanese/NewZealand nationality)... keywords: car- and clothes model, aerobics instructor, semi-professional violin player and business student. So we were becoming extra friendly now and soon we were in a LDR (Long Distance Relationship). So i was very happy and i found a reason to live my life again.
My rude friend (ill call him Rudy)was still coming over to my place sometimes, and this was annoying as i wanted to spend all my time talking to her.. Sometimes he was knocking on the door almost at midnight because he wanted to eat and hang out at my place. He had quit school that year because hes pretty stupid and he didnt like school. He doesnt think of the consequenses of much hes wanting to do. So then i had to stay up till late at night and i could of course not get up in the morning for school. Anyway hes a little ******* sometimes, when im with him he heard sometimes that i keep getting messages, but i didnt want to tell him who its from, so he was running away with my phone and locking himself in the bathroom to read my messages from her.
I was shaking and anxious that anyone would find out that i was having this weird relation ship with this girl... the fact that shes asian i thought is even more embarrasing. So.... he found out and im really anxious that he would tell anyone. He didnt, yet. But he thinks its fun to call her when shes sleeping etc...hes really annoying. He was sometimes playing around in my appartment throwing bottles around and in the roof, which made marks. And one time he hit the roof lamp and broke it at night. The house owner came downstairs wondering what the hell was going on... This was the third time a got a warning (two first were beacause the I didnt go out with the trash that time, and the other because we were heating pizza one night and the fire alarm went off and the fire truck came over................) this time i couldnt even make up an excuse. So I had to move out :/
School was almost over and well... what should i do now. I hopped on a plane to visit my korean friend who was now studying a semester in norway as exchange student. She lived in a city that was a little far away from my place. And i stayed there for a week to get my mind off my problems. (smart)
I had a great time with her. It was the first time i was visiting a girl, and she was living there with a friend (also from Korea). I had no expectations of that she would like me, we had just been friends for a long time. But i was staying there for a week, and it was hard not to like her... shes not the prettiest thing but shes cute... and probably the kindest girl on earth.
I really liked her personality and now i was starting to realize that i preferred her personality much more than my beautiful girlfriend's. I didnt know if i wanted her to be more than friends with me, but at the end of the week there was some hold-handing action and i got a kiss on the cheek before leaving home. I told my gorgeous GF that i didnt want to her boyfriend anymore. Adios to her. (but shes still a good friend today)
No one had found out that i was there, i had turned off my phone. "Luckily" no one had called. But the next day my brother called me and asked how im doing. After some minutes talking about that i do pretty good at work i had to say that i was being thrown out of the appartment..... so yeah he was pretty suprised and he did of course think i shouldnt stay in that city anymore. So he said i could stay at his place where he's studying.
Some days later he was coming over with his car to bring my stuff and we drove to his place. I was feeling pretty bad for having wasted a year of school and i was disappointed with the way i am. I stayed at his place for half a year, and I did not know a single person in that city. All i did now was just staying at home when and reading for exams that i needed to take over again (self-study, i was trying to take 6 exams), and also just staying at home. Everyday. So i was getting depressed again. My brother was starting to notice im depressed and uninspired, i was scared to tell him that im afraid of talking etc, but it was then that he told me that he was suspecting that i was having social anxiety and told me how it was. Everything was right about me, so i was kind of relieved that there wasnt something wrong with how i am, i just have a "disorder". And i cried... because i wanted so much to change that.
I went to a free psychologist (for under 19) to talk about my problems with social anxiety and all the other thought i had in my head, and it felt really good to talk about it to someone in my own language.. I stayed there for half a year until winter and took my exams, I got pretty good grades in 4 of them but one of them i got an F and the last one... i overslept. Now i needed to find a way to expose myself to "danger" by talking to as many as i can. Then i decided to join the army (1-year obligatory) because i didnt have much useful things i could do other than getting a job and i didnt want to live with my brother anymore because its also disturbing his private life a little (but i just listen to music when hes bringing home girls at night). And its a pretty good deal to be in the army because they provide a place to live, free food.... and also they pay for all the exams i take which are quite expensive. Just what i needed.
So i started there, i have always been in good shape even though i dont work out much (i eat too healthy), but the problem of course would be talking with everyone there. I wanted to expose myself to this and i really wanted to give it a try this time. I was placed in a room with 4 others, 2 of them i thought were nice and i got along nicely with them, then there were the other 2 guys... who were a little rude sometimes and i get very easily offended or take things they say too seriously. So anytime any of those two were in the room i didnt dare to speak. After about 2 days i had given up again and i would just be answering questions, i almost never asked them when i needed help so i did many things wrong and they were liking me even less.
So through the year im just doing what i have to do and i still cant overcome my anxiety. This was the year that i could really behave any way i wanted because i would not see them again and nobody knew eachother, but i had given up again and i was disappointed and feeling slightly depressed through the year, just waiting for the year to be over.
After half a year it was summer and i got a 2-week holiday to do what i wanted. And this time... I hopped on the plane to Korea. I was living in an appartment with my sister now when i was home from the army, i told her that i was going to visit my friends in city B for the two weeks. I thought that was a pretty safe plan, and i turned off my phone.
I have always dreamed of just getting away from my country and stay in a strange foreing land where i can do what i want without having to think about what my family or friends think of me. And I had an amazing time there. Everything was interesting and new. I stayed at a hotel there for the two weeks hanging out with my friend almost everyday. I still liked her and we had had some kind of overfriendly relationship for a long time and she didnt want to do stuff with me. But i had to hold hands with her sometimes Those weeks went super-fast and i had to get back on the plane to my home country. At the airport i actually asked if i could kiss her (usually not a good idea) to "put an end" to our too friendly relationship... and she wanted to too so I kissed her, and it felt extremely nice, and i thought about it most of the 8-hour plane trip back.
Back at home in the appartment my sister said that my father had was a bit angry because he couldnt called me. He had called my friends living in city B and they said i wasnt visiting there. So he had gotten really worried. I was not feeling very sorry for him, but i think i did it to get some attention from him too. So he asked me one the phone where i had been......... i started sweating and shaking like crazy and then i said that i had been visiting some girl in a city in norway for the time. He's then asking me if im ashamed to have a girlfriend, and i say yeah im not (i am, very) and he becomes super-friendly asking me what was her name and i say some random girl name and he says: oh, what a nice name! haha i felt like he was talking about her as some little kid and i was feeling even dumber.
But after some weeks hes asking me how shes doing, then i just... i dont want to lie to him because i'll feel bad about it so i told him that i really was in Korea visiting someone and hes of course surprised for some seconds but it was ok. But i felt extremely embarrased.
So then it was back to the same old in the army, i was talking less and less with the others and i was just focusing on reading for my exams and not much else. The last months were hard... everyday i was in anxiety because i knew the others thought i was weird for not talking and all, and some of them even seriously asked me if i was taking drugs or something because im not paying attention to things (because im nervous around them). Anyway i made it and throughout the year i had taken all the 14 exams that i needed to complete highschool with average grades (It's hard to explain, but I needed to take exams for almost 2/3 of the whole highschool education, very proud of myself, and i didnt have to spend another year in school)
So!
I am now at home, i have no idea what to study so i decided to move to Costa Rica next week staying there for 3 months to learn spanish (i love learning languages and travelling), ill be working as a volunteer at a school. I think this a good way to challenge my anxiety and since i'll be living abroad i can finally relax and feel at home (as strange as it sounds) and i am just looking forward to this so much, I will REALLY try hard this time. I know i could just tell my family about my problems now and make things much easier for myself, but i cant make myself do it yet.
Im wondering if theres anyone who has some kind of similar experience, or any tips on dealing with social phobia or anything related. Please write any comments, tips, questions or anything!! =)
I found out some years ago that there is something called social anxiety, and when I saw the list of symptoms I saw that about 90% was true about how I think. I have always thought I was just different from others for no special reason, but I know I could have a different normal personality without my anxiety, and my anxiety stops me from doing so many things in my life, I know my overall quality of life would be so much better without it so I really want to change that. And that takes time.
Also I mostly have anxiety when talking in groups, i feel pretty comfortable talking with just one person at time even if its someone i dont know.
So I am almost 21 years old, living in Norway... I am super kind, im not unconfident with how i look, but im afraid to make mistakes and im very careful with what i do, and im really too careful overall. Im especially careful of what my family thinks of me and that has caused many problems for me because its turned into anxiety.
I think I had a pretty good childhood and Ive been told that I'm shy even since I was 5-6 years. Since ive been shy from such a young age I thought maybe theres something that i got scared of as little or something, but I havent thought much about the reason. It was not much of a problem for me, I was just a little more quiet and careful than other kids and I made many good friends in the first years of school.
When I was 10, my parents got divorced and I had to move with my 3 brothers and my sister with my mother from city A (I'll just call it that) to city B (where my mother was born and family is from). I had already changed school once before this so I thought it would not be a big problem to make new friends again. But this is when I started to get problems with talking to people. This city had a quite different dialect than from where I'm born, and I was feeling very embarrassed to talk in class because I thought I sound strange. I made a few good friends quickly but now I was becoming more and more afraid to talk to anyone outside my family. Then I started talking with a very low voice and later almost whispering. I did not say a word in class out loud after that, but I was doing very well in all subjects.
I started playing video games in most of my free time, and I did not really know what being social was, or why it would be good for me. For example my class was going one a one-week trip to a place and it costed a little amount of money, but I remember that I actually was more interested in buying some game instead for that money. I couldn't anyway, and that was a fun trip. But maybe I was becoming antisocial. My 2,5 years younger brother is the complete opposite of me, very social and outgoing. So he was starting to hang out with my friends more than I did, and I remembered that when i was hanging out with them and my brother, I just decided to "give up" on being a talkative guy and let my brother be that type. And thats how it went. This is when I was starting to understand that there's a point of being social, but I felt it was too late to change myself or something.
When I was about to start grade 9 I wanted to move back to city A, even though I'm much more close to my mother.. but anyway I did and I moved in with my father and his girlfriend (who is an annoying piece of woman.. none of my ciblings get along well with her). Back in this city A i have one really good friend who I've known since I was 6 and I think he was the main reason for why I wanted to move back. I continued to be super quiet in class and I was not making any other friends that I was spending time with in my spare time. He is however this extremely popular guy and the class" clown with not even a hint of being shy. I was just one of his maybe 100 friends so i was gradually going back to staying at home playing games or other things. I was almost never going outside the house in my free time so in weekends for example my father sometimes said I should go for a walk in the forest... I felt like a loser walking around there, that's not what a teenager should be doing in weekends. Anyway I guess it's better than taking drugs.
Then two years later I wanted to move back to my mother and my siblings, and I did. I started going to class again with my old friends there but I was becoming more and more shy. And this time I was completely giving up on making more friends since i had been moving to new places and classes all the time, i knew I would be moving away from them soon. So I'm starting highschool and we moved to a new city nearby. I did not feel I fit in with he new class, there was only one guy who i would talk to sometimes. In recess i was often eating my lunch alone downstairs at the toilet, because i had nowhere else to go. I was also often visiting my grandmother who lived at the retirement center right next to school to eat there. Nobody in my class knew about this.
My mother had survived cancer two times already at his point (when I moved to
my father she was healthy, but I regret moving there now a little) but she had got cancer for the third time, and now she was slowly getting sick. She could not take care of us alone anymore so we moved in with my uncle (my mothers brother) and his wife.
My uncle is a boss of a pretty big company, a bitter perfectionist and he's as cold as steel. He is a workaholic, his wife says he never takes holidays because he likes to work, but what is the point of working then.. he keeps building on their house and there is no end to his projects. And his wife want to divorce him but she decided not to because it would be a shame to her status/family. He has no friends other than work colleagues too. My two older brothers were not allowed inside the house because one of them took a picture of him when he wasnt prepared. Me and my two younger siblings living there felt like living in prison, none of us dared to bring any friends home. I still did ok in school, but I was starting to feel depressed. Then at the end of the schoolyear my mother died... I was devastated. I dont remember much of that summer,,,
I still lived with my uncle, until Christmas time, when they had had enough of us.
They said we were not giving anythin back to them, and we did not want to. One more morning I woke up from hearing him roar in the basement, he ran around asking who had left a banana on the floor. My little brother was found as the "guilty" one and he was yelling at him for at least 3 minutes and spitting him in the face as he was yelling. I don't know if that's normal behavior for a 40 year old, but it was obvious that he had been charging up some passive-aggressive anger for a long time. So we were having a meeting with them and they said we had to get out before Christmas, (2 weeks). I was not feeling sorry to leave them.
The reason I hate him most is because he said something to my mother that last year about that she was not giving us a proper upbringing because we were moving around many places etc. What kind of person can say that to a dying mother, she did her best.
He must be psychopathic in some way, and none of his siblings barely have any contact with him. Anyway we were ordered out of the castle, my two younger siblings decided to move back to my father. I did not want to move again, as I was getting exhausted of everything changing around me, and I didn't want to move away from the few friends I had left there.
So I wanted to start looking for an apartment, but I couldn't get one quickly enough so my aunt let me stay at her house for a little while. Living there was ok but even more lonely, far out on the countryside and I had to take bus and train to school. I suspect she is also having some social anxiety, shes a very quiet type and she didn't want to have a wedding even though she's married because "it's not a big deal". I can't talk to her about personal things, we are like two magnetic fields of the same type.
After about 2 months i finally found an apartment near the school and i moved in just a day after turning 18. Now my best friend there was too busy (2 Jobs and a gf) and i only hung around with one guy sometimes, a rude selfish guy who i didnt really want to be around with, but he sometimes came visiting when he wanted (i never called him), and im too weak to say i dont want to be with him, but i guess it was better than living alone completely.
I was doing fine living alone, but i always have a habit of postponing everything until the last possible moment. I did however surive through the rest of the schoolyear with only missing a few grades, and in summer I got a job at a supermarked as a cashier. I never thought i could be a person doing the tasks of a cashier, but i wanted to try it to practice talking to people without being shy and i needed an income to pay for my appartment and food. The work went well and i was getting used to talking to strangers all day, i begun to feel comfortable with talking again. I worked like crazy that summer, and got some fat paychecks. But i did not spend the extra money on anything more than food. As a person im careful with everything, but also with spending money. I know today that its not healthy to never buy new clothes, movie or any things that make me feel better, but i did not think about that at this time.
I started my third and last year of highschool, another new class and school. With becoming more condfident about talking i thought "this is the year i will change everything" and make friends with everyone in class. But i started in a school far away from where i live and i wanted to change it, so i got the option after the first week to change to a school very close to where my appartment is, and i did. But on the first day of school i saw everyone had already gotten to know eachother pretty well, and i was as usual the new guy in class, i didnt even try. So i went back to the usual enjoying my lunches at the toilet and using the school computers for msn in breaks. I had started talking to two girls.. one from China and the other from South Korea (coincidently found on skype search, why theyre asian... i prefer exotic girls i guess) and the chinese girl became very good friends with me and i finally had someone to talk to about my problems.
Life was flowing slowly and as usual, until some time in autumn when the owner of my appartment said i had to move out (she was going to have a baby, and they needed the appartment for extra space), with just some weeks notice. (I couldnt move to my father in the middle of the schoolyear) As usual i was postponing whats important for some weeks before i started looking for an appartment. And all the ones i found were really expensive, so they day when i had to move out was coming closer, and then.... i had to move out and check in on a hotel.
I felt pretty weird going to school while my only home was a hotel but it was what i had to do. Staying there was quite expensive so i had to work everyday after school, and this is when i started to be absent from a lot of classes. Finally after i had stayed at the hotel for two weeks, i found an affordable appartment in the newspaper, a place that could best be described as a ghost town on the countryside. I called the owner and later i had an "interview" with her. There was just one other guy wanting to rent the appartment, and she said she couldnt let me down because i was practically homeless. So i was saved
for a while.Now it was winter, and i was feeling more depressed again. I felt disgusting..... i didnt want to spend money on a washing maching so i didnt wash my clothes for 2 months, i had to rotate on which ones had been used the most and i didnt shower more than 1-2 times a week (even though i dont sweat much at this time, its pretty disgusting). One night i woke up by hearing something crawling in a bag in the kitchen... at first i was paralyzed but i then got the courage to get up and turn on the light, then i rememberd i had not gone outside with the trash bag for more than a week. In the bag i saw lots of small bugs feasting on the food, i had to go get the vaccum cleaner and use it on the floor as they were crawling around on the floor too..... :S i felt like an insane person.
Now i didnt go to school more than half of the days, but i did go to work almost every evening, because i did not feel there was any reason to go to school anymore. I had absolutely no idea what i would study anyway.
Often when i woke up, i just laid there.... for hours, thinking about the meaning of life and death. I could have gotten a scholarship from my school for living costs because i live bymyself, about 6000$. I just needed to go to a few more classes a week, but i still didnt want to.
I was completely apathic. I did not attend enough classes to get a single grade for the last counting semester, but i was pretty close. So the last schoolyear was a complete waste, i could have just quit the first day. But i dont think i thinking clearly anymore. The only thing i cared about now was that as long as im alive, things were ok.
But i had at least one positive experience. All i did now was just going to school if i could get up in the morning and work after that. I was talking to that chinese girl pretty much all the time i spent at home. I couldnt stop talking to her, some days we talked up to 10 hours straight.
She was the one person in the world i could talk to about everything, so that made me feel better. I had always liked her, but i didnt ever think she would be interested in me. She was also in a similar situation as mine, she had to move out by herself when she was 14 because of family problems (shes 2 years older than me) So she is a very independant woman. She has blue eyes (Chinese/Japanese/NewZealand nationality)... keywords: car- and clothes model, aerobics instructor, semi-professional violin player and business student. So we were becoming extra friendly now and soon we were in a LDR (Long Distance Relationship). So i was very happy and i found a reason to live my life again.
My rude friend (ill call him Rudy
)was still coming over to my place sometimes, and this was annoying as i wanted to spend all my time talking to her.. Sometimes he was knocking on the door almost at midnight because he wanted to eat and hang out at my place. He had quit school that year because hes pretty stupid and he didnt like school. He doesnt think of the consequenses of much hes wanting to do. So then i had to stay up till late at night and i could of course not get up in the morning for school. Anyway hes a little ******* sometimes, when im with him he heard sometimes that i keep getting messages, but i didnt want to tell him who its from, so he was running away with my phone and locking himself in the bathroom to read my messages from her. I was shaking and anxious that anyone would find out that i was having this weird relation ship with this girl... the fact that shes asian i thought is even more embarrasing. So.... he found out and im really anxious that he would tell anyone. He didnt, yet. But he thinks its fun to call her when shes sleeping etc...hes really annoying. He was sometimes playing around in my appartment throwing bottles around and in the roof, which made marks. And one time he hit the roof lamp and broke it at night. The house owner came downstairs wondering what the hell was going on... This was the third time a got a warning (two first were beacause the I didnt go out with the trash that time, and the other because we were heating pizza one night and the fire alarm went off and the fire truck came over................) this time i couldnt even make up an excuse. So I had to move out :/
School was almost over and well... what should i do now. I hopped on a plane to visit my korean friend who was now studying a semester in norway as exchange student. She lived in a city that was a little far away from my place. And i stayed there for a week to get my mind off my problems. (smart
)I had a great time with her. It was the first time i was visiting a girl, and she was living there with a friend (also from Korea). I had no expectations of that she would like me, we had just been friends for a long time. But i was staying there for a week, and it was hard not to like her... shes not the prettiest thing but shes cute... and probably the kindest girl on earth.
I really liked her personality and now i was starting to realize that i preferred her personality much more than my beautiful girlfriend's. I didnt know if i wanted her to be more than friends with me, but at the end of the week there was some hold-handing action and i got a kiss on the cheek before leaving home. I told my gorgeous GF that i didnt want to her boyfriend anymore. Adios to her. (but shes still a good friend today)
No one had found out that i was there, i had turned off my phone. "Luckily" no one had called. But the next day my brother called me and asked how im doing. After some minutes talking about that i do pretty good at work i had to say that i was being thrown out of the appartment..... so yeah he was pretty suprised and he did of course think i shouldnt stay in that city anymore. So he said i could stay at his place where he's studying.
Some days later he was coming over with his car to bring my stuff and we drove to his place. I was feeling pretty bad for having wasted a year of school and i was disappointed with the way i am. I stayed at his place for half a year, and I did not know a single person in that city. All i did now was just staying at home when and reading for exams that i needed to take over again (self-study, i was trying to take 6 exams), and also just staying at home. Everyday. So i was getting depressed again. My brother was starting to notice im depressed and uninspired, i was scared to tell him that im afraid of talking etc, but it was then that he told me that he was suspecting that i was having social anxiety and told me how it was. Everything was right about me, so i was kind of relieved that there wasnt something wrong with how i am, i just have a "disorder". And i cried... because i wanted so much to change that.
I went to a free psychologist (for under 19) to talk about my problems with social anxiety and all the other thought i had in my head, and it felt really good to talk about it to someone in my own language.. I stayed there for half a year until winter and took my exams, I got pretty good grades in 4 of them but one of them i got an F and the last one... i overslept. Now i needed to find a way to expose myself to "danger" by talking to as many as i can. Then i decided to join the army (1-year obligatory) because i didnt have much useful things i could do other than getting a job and i didnt want to live with my brother anymore because its also disturbing his private life a little (but i just listen to music when hes bringing home girls at night). And its a pretty good deal to be in the army because they provide a place to live, free food.... and also they pay for all the exams i take which are quite expensive. Just what i needed.
So i started there, i have always been in good shape even though i dont work out much (i eat too healthy), but the problem of course would be talking with everyone there. I wanted to expose myself to this and i really wanted to give it a try this time. I was placed in a room with 4 others, 2 of them i thought were nice and i got along nicely with them, then there were the other 2 guys... who were a little rude sometimes and i get very easily offended or take things they say too seriously. So anytime any of those two were in the room i didnt dare to speak. After about 2 days i had given up again and i would just be answering questions, i almost never asked them when i needed help so i did many things wrong and they were liking me even less.
So through the year im just doing what i have to do and i still cant overcome my anxiety. This was the year that i could really behave any way i wanted because i would not see them again and nobody knew eachother, but i had given up again and i was disappointed and feeling slightly depressed through the year, just waiting for the year to be over.
After half a year it was summer and i got a 2-week holiday to do what i wanted. And this time... I hopped on the plane to Korea. I was living in an appartment with my sister now when i was home from the army, i told her that i was going to visit my friends in city B for the two weeks. I thought that was a pretty safe plan, and i turned off my phone.
I have always dreamed of just getting away from my country and stay in a strange foreing land where i can do what i want without having to think about what my family or friends think of me. And I had an amazing time there. Everything was interesting and new. I stayed at a hotel there for the two weeks hanging out with my friend almost everyday. I still liked her and we had had some kind of overfriendly relationship for a long time and she didnt want to do stuff with me. But i had to hold hands with her sometimes
Those weeks went super-fast and i had to get back on the plane to my home country. At the airport i actually asked if i could kiss her (usually not a good idea) to "put an end" to our too friendly relationship... and she wanted to too so I kissed her, and it felt extremely nice, and i thought about it most of the 8-hour plane trip back. Back at home in the appartment my sister said that my father had was a bit angry because he couldnt called me. He had called my friends living in city B and they said i wasnt visiting there. So he had gotten really worried. I was not feeling very sorry for him, but i think i did it to get some attention from him too. So he asked me one the phone where i had been......... i started sweating and shaking like crazy and then i said that i had been visiting some girl in a city in norway for the time. He's then asking me if im ashamed to have a girlfriend, and i say yeah im not (i am, very) and he becomes super-friendly asking me what was her name and i say some random girl name and he says: oh, what a nice name! haha i felt like he was talking about her as some little kid and i was feeling even dumber.
But after some weeks hes asking me how shes doing, then i just... i dont want to lie to him because i'll feel bad about it so i told him that i really was in Korea visiting someone and hes of course surprised for some seconds but it was ok. But i felt extremely embarrased.
So then it was back to the same old in the army, i was talking less and less with the others and i was just focusing on reading for my exams and not much else. The last months were hard... everyday i was in anxiety because i knew the others thought i was weird for not talking and all, and some of them even seriously asked me if i was taking drugs or something because im not paying attention to things (because im nervous around them). Anyway i made it and throughout the year i had taken all the 14 exams that i needed to complete highschool with average grades (It's hard to explain, but I needed to take exams for almost 2/3 of the whole highschool education, very proud of myself,
and i didnt have to spend another year in school)So!
I am now at home, i have no idea what to study so i decided to move to Costa Rica next week staying there for 3 months to learn spanish (i love learning languages and travelling), ill be working as a volunteer at a school. I think this a good way to challenge my anxiety and since i'll be living abroad i can finally relax and feel at home (as strange as it sounds) and i am just looking forward to this so much, I will REALLY try hard this time. I know i could just tell my family about my problems now and make things much easier for myself, but i cant make myself do it yet.
Im wondering if theres anyone who has some kind of similar experience, or any tips on dealing with social phobia or anything related. Please write any comments, tips, questions or anything!! =)
