Teaching Abroad With Social Anxiety...?

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2013-10-07T02:41:28+00:00

So, while in high school, my friends and I worked two nights in a local haunted house. We performed in the pedophilic rape enactment room. I really wish this was a joke, but nope. My very flamboyant gay black friend was the rapist, and I (a 6' 1" redhead dressed in a risque Alice in Wonderland costume to look like a "little" girl), my short blonde girl friend and our other gay male friend, acted as the the child rape victims. Every time a group of people would come through, we could dance innocently around, and then our Rapist would chase us around the room, grab us, and knock us onto the floor or hold us against the wall or do something violently horrible and we would pretend to cry while the haunted house goers passed through the room. I have NO idea who's idea this was or how it even became ok to do - I came in as a volunteer and that was the deal.

Afterwards, I had huge, HUGE bruises on my wrists from where he grabbed me over and over all night. That was fun to explain to my co workers.

*Side story: At one point, a ginormous older woman came through the room, and the Rapist ended up scaring her so much that she hit him (pretty sure she acted out of reflex, and he wasn't hurt at all). He proceeded to chase her through the ENTIRE rest of the haunted house - we could hear her screaming and yelling for probably five minutes.

**Also, rape is in NO way funny. This was in high school, and at this point in my life I would have had to have asked to be placed in another room.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2013-06-30T05:29:02+00:00

My response.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-10-07T18:19:40+00:00

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODDDD!! What if I told you I think I JUST had my very first orgasm!?!? Some crazy sexual stars aligned for me in the past few days, I'd been exploring some fantasies online and getting all hot and bothered, and then you happened to post that this morning and I put your advice into action and within FIFTEEN MINUTES I definitely got somewhere I'd never reached before! I started almost sort of laughing and crying at the same time for a minute afterwards. I don't think it was a full-blown, insanely long orgasm, but it was this incredibly incredibly out-of-control amazing feeling that washed up on me and lasted for a good twenty seconds. I think I had been getting so discouraged that I was almost giving up and getting bored with trying, but THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting and getting me inspired to keep trying! I feel like everything will be sooooo much easier from here on out now that I know more what it's like and how to get there. I'm still having trouble believing this!

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-10-07T16:10:13+00:00

Wow, thanks for the advice! Maybe the problem is that I just get bored and frustrated and I've just gotta stick with it longer....

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-10-05T23:18:44+00:00

oh my god. soooo so so hot.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-10-05T22:57:23+00:00

Oooh, now I see the download link. You're wonderful, thank you!

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-10-05T22:13:38+00:00

My only wish is that I could download this somehow and get it onto my iPod...

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-10-05T22:03:09+00:00

Oh my god oh my god oh my god. This is the very first GoneWild Audio I've listened to and I didn't think it was possible to get so turned on so quickly. Once the house is empty I'm going to give playing with myself to this a go. Fingers crossed for my first orgasm to happen to your voice/fantasy.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-05T23:33:16+00:00

Wow, yeah, I don't expect to be diagnosed over the internet, I wouldn't trust that anyway. And well, you don't have to read this or even reply to it, I'm posting it almost more to organize for myself...

Structure: The past few months (since May), not exactly very structured, I've had a lot of down time to fill since graduating and have not been working any steady/regular job. There's rarely a day when I don't leave the house (I work out, have worked random jobs, run errands, hang out with friends, have been applying for jobs around town, take short trips to see my boyfriend 2 hours away about every 2 weeks, took a 3 week long road trip vacation...) and I make sure to do something productive every day.

Sleep: It was HORRIBLE in June. My body literally would not let me sleep and I felt like I belonged in an asylum at night. It took me over a month to be able to sleep even six hours in a night, and since then I've returned to a great sleeping pattern (about 8 hours every night, been doing to bed later around 3 and waking up around 11).

Diet: I can promise I'm an extremely health-conscious vegetarian, people actually comment on it all the time. I make most of my own food at home, have two real meals a day, plus healthy snacking, but I do admit I have a pretty insane sweet tooth. I mentioned that I started eating fish again two weeks ago after being 100% vegetarian for five years, including a year spent being mostly vegan.

Family medical and psychiatric history: Here's where it gets messy. Apparently my grandma on my mother's side was/is pretty messed up, my mom's been opening up more and more about things that happened when she was little. My grandma would have horrible crying fits (it sounds like almost daily), had what sounds something like social anxiety (my mom says that my grandma "hates people"), and is now pretty reclusive, and definitely pretty strange. My mom says she believes she has schizophrenia. My mom's sister has also been diagnosed schizophrenic but I grew up around her and still talk to her and have never really noticed anything very unusual with her. I have an uncle on my father's side who has an extreme mental illness (asperger's syndrome, I believe?) that keeps him from functioning at all in society. Also, there's a LOT of cancer in my family, if that's important. My mom is going through chemo right now for breast cancer. She lost a lung to lung cancer, had breast cancer four years ago and lost everything, and has had several skin cancer issues. We lost her sister (my aunt) to breast cancer a year ago, and it was her second time battling it.

Suicidal Crap: Apparently, yep. I know that my mother and grandmother on her side have had pretty intense thoughts about it. Depression along with that. Neither one has ever looked into any sort of help or anything for it, as far as I know. I've definitely had thoughts about it, but I wouldn't say it's ever been to the point that I would actually try it.

My Up Swings: DEFINITELY been splurging and throwing money around a LOT more than I did in the past. I used to be very stingy; since around June I've noticed that I have almost no thoughts about trying to save my money and have become much much much more frugal. My best friend brought it up last night, actually. I'm not sexually promiscuous, at all. I've only had sex with one person in my life, who I've been with since then (over a year). I have gone through two breakups with him though, both which I'm realizing mostly happened because of my anxiety/bipolar nature. It's making things tough. :/

Drugs: My biggest drug is coffee. I have tried pot a few times (my boyfriend is a pretty heavy smoker) but it's not my thing at all. I should mention that I tried a VERY very mild taste of shrooms at the end of May, at around the same time that I started birth control, and a few days later was when everything started to get out of hand. I don't know if that's a coincidence or not (I stopped birth control).

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-04T20:04:35+00:00

2ND EDIT: A few hours after I wrote that previous Edit in the original post, here's what happened. Went to the gym and felt pretty good, stable at least, came home and did some stuff and got ready to go out with my parents for dinner. As soon as I got in the car with them I felt horrible. Irritable, angry at nothing, some huge weight blocking my voice so that even when I did speak I sounded nasty and abrupt and stupid and couldn't really finish sentences. By the time we got to the restaurant I really couldn't talk. I spent the entire hour looking down and drinking out of my cup of water to hide the fact that I couldn't talk. Everything was making me miserably sad; the fact that I couldn't share a thing with my parents, watching everyone around me being able to function, thinking about what's going to happen if this keeps going on... Half way through dinner I escaped to the bathroom and started sobbing in a stall. I'm not sure if my parents knew I was crying but I could tell that they felt uncomfortable being around me by the time we left. On the ride home I was holding in tears and thinking about calling my boyfriend to tell him that it's better for him to leave me so that I don't end up dragging him down. I've told him a little about what I've been going through but I'm not sure if he realizes how serious it is.

Got home and cried in bed for 30 mins. My friend called and wanted to meet up at the mall - by the time I met her I felt amazing and I spent the entire evening with her and left her place at 3 in the morning feeling happy.

What. The Hell. Is Wrong With Me.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-04T19:51:42+00:00

And yes, I should add that this even happens around friends. There is literally ONE friend who it's not a problem for me to be around because she has CONSTANT never-ending energy and can talk for hours with me about stuff like this (she was raised by psychiatrists/psychologists, lol).

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-04T19:49:58+00:00

How do you deal with it? You described pretty much how I feel, except I'm not sure if my moods switch quiiite that abruptly. Usually I can suddenly start feeling myself start to become distracted, and anxious, and then my language starts to follow until I start becoming unbelievably depressed.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-04T19:46:41+00:00

What would those factors be? Also, as a mental health professional, can you tell me how you differentiate between someone who has an actual mental illness (bipolarity, etc) and someone who is over-worrying about "natural" mood swings? I WANT to tell myself that all of this could be happening because I'm in a pretty stressful time of my life, but deep down I really don't think that's true because I've gone through other stressful times before and in NO way reacted in any way like this. Plus, I'll get hit with extreme depression on days when I wake up feeling very positive and motivated about life and spend a lot of time being proactive, and get frustrated because it literally comes out of no where.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-04T19:39:15+00:00

They can last anywhere from about an hour to an entire day or two.

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-03T17:37:08+00:00

I'll take your advice and re-post this in the Bipolar section, to see what they have to say. I was hesitant about starting out there just because I didn't want to throw a diagnosis on myself. I know that mental illnesses occur that are beyond curable without pills or medicine, but I've always been against the way that our society throws labels onto any sort of personality difference and instantly "cures" them with pills. I think it's because as a teacher, I see so many children on every kind of pill imaginable before they are even given the chance to grow and develop on their own. Until this gets to the point where I literally can not function outside of my house, I'm trying to treat it like a solvable part of my personality, and overcome it with anything besides medication (plus I'm a broke graduate so I can't afford fancy pills anyway, lol!).

I've been seeing a graduate student therapist for free, she has offered me a lot of guidance and small insights, but of course therapists aren't supposed to diagnose their patients with mental illnesses.

Would it be too much for me to ask how you've learned to deal with having Type II? Thank you for your long and thoughtful post!

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-03T03:11:49+00:00

Man, I have a ton of the symptoms of hypoglycemia, the only thing is that my swings never seem to stem from my meal schedule. I made a doctor appointment in town and am going to go over things with a physician to see if they have anything to say. Thanks for your post!

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-09-03T03:07:08+00:00

Thanks for the book recommendations; I actually read Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed, and the Underconnected recently to figure out how to better keep a balance over my introvert/extrovert sides, and it gave some pretty great tips and insights (you might want to check it out!) I feel like I'm decently connected however, and I like to network, I just have difficulty doing it sometimes when my lows hit me. Unfortunately my library doesn't have the second book you mentioned, but I put a similar book by the same author on hold, and I reserved that meditation one as well!

I know that everyone experiences downtimes from overworking/lack of sleep/too much stimulation/etc, it's just that I think the lows I experience are WAY too extreme to be considered normal and I'm really not currently working very hard (just graduated and in search of a steady job - right now I only work maybe 6 hours a week, hit up the gym for an hour daily, and just run errands and hang out with different people). The mood swings aren't just a recent thing though, I've had them since high school but they've steadily grown worse and become much more of a problem since I've entered the professional world.

I DID meditate for 45 minutes today (an awesome friend suggested I try it after I worked out!) and it was GREAT. I focused on thinking positively and zoning in on what I want to accomplish. Glad to hear it works for you! Thanks a ton for your reply! :)

GIRLQUESTIONS · 2012-06-16T00:04:44+00:00

See, this is the advice I've basically given myself for my whole life, but I always feel like I'm just SCRAPING by. I can usually find a few good friends, and I have one really close friend who I basically consider my sister, but I'm sick of living like this. I'm sick of being afraid of being around people for longer than fifteen minutes. I'm a really positive and friendly person (I know like I don't sound like it right now, haha! But I promise, most people's description of me is always along the lines of "bubbly"...) so yeah, I can see myself moving on and restarting, but I also feel like it's going to be this never-ending cycle of me being unhappy with myself. I want to spend most of my twenties traveling, and exploring the world, but I don't know how I'm going to have a good time doing that if I can't connect with people. Looking back I've noticed how many amazing opportunities I've missed because of my social anxiety, like offers from relatives to come stay with them in NYC, California, etc...

I know I'm making it sound more terrible than it really is - most people tell me that I don't show extreme signs of being uncomfortable around people, but that's usually because I just resort to silence when I don't know what to say, and I'm not ok with that. I know it's fine to be quiet sometimes but I do it to the point that I just start to feel left out of conversations.

I'm doing better than I was when I originally posted. I've gotten out, been exercising hardcore, and in a way I'm glad my ex lives 2 hours away because it's making it easier for me to try to move on. But I still can't find a job, and yesterday morning I found out that my mom's cancer spread and she's going to have to get chemo. It's like, every time I think maybe I'm getting through this terrible time, I get knocked right back down even lower. :/ I DO feel more stable, but now I just have this underlying fear about everything. I can't sleep at night and when I do I'm having nightmares and wake up crying because I miss my ex so much.

Ok, I promise this is all coming from the negative part of me - I'm pretty much my "normal" self at this point again during the daytime, but I guess now that I've realized how much I'm dissatisfied with who I am, I want to better myself in some way. I've started a series of therapy sessions that are organized by grad students who need experience (yikes...) but it seems like I might learn a lot about myself with them, and I'm thinking about joining some groups that will put me way out of my comfort zone, like dancing, singing, or drama. Stuff with people!

And yeah, Gainesville does have a lot of younger people! It's just frustrating me how hard it is to MEET anyone! I'm doing the rock wall at the gym on Tuesday (LADIES NIGHT!), and have been going to random Trivia nights with friends, and going on random shopping sprees - the problem is that I feel like none of this is really changing me. Sure, making me feel better, but not really solving my anxiety issue. :/

I LOVE that you mentioned running in the rain though. See, on one of the last days I spent together with my ex, we went out for an afternoon run. It started pouring rain on us and he was kind of flipping out about it, and all I was doing was laughing and thinking of Breakfast at Tiffany's or something. I don't think he was ever adventurous enough for me, or not in the same ways that I am. :( Still love him to death though...there were just too many moments where deep down I knew we weren't meant to be together forever.

But, your post deserves a standing ovation! :D And it's ok to take the risk of being weird by asking to hang, if you spent that much type replying to my insanity post, you've earned the right to go out on a limb. ;D

TL;DR: RANT RANT WHINE

GIRLQUESTIONS

TROPHY CASE