Do you have social anxiety disorder as well?

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KevinLA
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03 Jul 2009, 1:28 am

I am staring to believe I have both AS and social anxiety.

I am learning that I have way too much anxiety around people.



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03 Jul 2009, 1:35 am

I think I do. Thopugh I'm not 100% sure since I'm only diagnosed with AS, so I self-diagnosed for social anxiety. I don't know whether you should see AS and social anxiety as two seperate disorders, I think that when you have AS you almost automatically have social anxiety. People fear what they don't understand. Or they fear what they cannot predict.


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Callista
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03 Jul 2009, 1:40 am

My AS does seem to be more evident when I am trying to socialize. It also gets more evident when I am overwhelmed by sensory input, thinking very hard, in the middle of some sort of dilemma, or under emotional stress. Conclusion: Not social anxiety; just a general responsiveness to stress. I suppose when I'm stressed, I lose NT-style skills first, and resort to autistic-style coping methods. I'm becoming more and more willing to do that now that I understand that this is the way I'm meant to react to stress, and as a result it's become easier to cope with.

I do think that social anxiety is probably the single most common AS comorbid; and that much of the distress attributed to AS is instead the result of social anxiety. The problem with solving this is that to destroy anxiety, one must face it... which means facing those social situations which are likely to result in embarrassment. Essentially, to avoid social anxiety, you have to be able to survive embarrassment without permanent loss self-worth... a difficult trick, but one which many people accomplish by things like laughing at themselves, re-contextualizing the social weakness as something acceptable rather than damning, deciding not to care about others' opinions, or even deliberately cultivating an image as an oddball.


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Danielismyname
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03 Jul 2009, 2:02 am

Nope.



DarrylZero
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03 Jul 2009, 2:10 am

I recently had my first diagnostic session with a psychologist, and she thinks it's likely I have mild AS and social anxiety. I'm going back for a second, more in-depth session so she can make a more thorough assessment and to see if the social anxiety is a separate issue or resulting from AS.



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03 Jul 2009, 2:31 am

I was initially treated for social anxiety disorder before anyone suspected AS. My GP describes me as having severe SAD; however, a psychiatrist ignored it, concentrating only on generalized anxiety disorder and AS. I think this is because any social anxiety is believed to stem from the AS.

In my case, I think it almost all stems from the AS. Since being diagnosed AS and having some answers, I've experienced far less social anxiety.



SpongeBobRocksMao
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03 Jul 2009, 2:36 am

I think I have it. I'm self-diagnosed for Social Anxiety but I'm sure I have it.


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Who_Am_I
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03 Jul 2009, 2:40 am

No.


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03 Jul 2009, 2:44 am

About 4 or 5 years ago I thought I did but after I self dx'ed and then got a Dr's dx everything I attributed to SAD is accounted for by my spectrum dx.



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03 Jul 2009, 4:10 am

No doubt many a shrink would say that I do, and would attempt to ram various life-shortening drugs down my throat.

But I prefer to think that I simply get a lot of social anxiety because of my AS. The way to treat it is to let me sort it out for myself, because like all episodes of anxiety I've sufffered in my life, the solution is not labels or drugs, but to deal with it using good coping strategies such as (in the case of social anxiety) choosing what type and number of people to associate with.



wildgrape
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03 Jul 2009, 6:33 am

No social anxiety here, even if my social interaction is not "normal".



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03 Jul 2009, 6:39 am

Yeah I think I still have a bit of social anxiety left in me. If I'm in supermarkets too long I start to get nauseous. Actually last time that happened was near nice smelling products, so it must have been my sensitivity to smell.
I am sometimes nervous around people. I used to have it really bad though.


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03 Jul 2009, 10:02 am

I think you have to count AS people with a very large pinch of salt depending on how they are with people because deending on the severity of their AS, I tend to think and in my degree will analyse that IF someone is undiagnosed with AS that it will develope into a further social anxiety to as it has that knock on effect however I think the can but a really experenced psychologist should analyse it as they have read on the situation and bumped into it several times in their practises.
Self diagnosi is not the best way because yo have the rosecoloured glasses aspect which is not very good in psychological diagnosis unless you have A LOT of facts but even then people tend to be hypercondriacts about it, I am just approaching thia to when I fnall get my psychology degree



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03 Jul 2009, 10:52 am

This has got me wondering......is anxiety still classed as social anxiety if there are no other people present at the time, e.g. getting a letter from DSS saying "we need to see you about your benefit claim" ? Or dreading an encounter with an authority figure or some other bully? (excuse the value judgement there but I'm typing in a hurry :oops: ) Or is it confined to feeling anxious when actually in the company of ordinary (and relatively harmless) people?



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03 Jul 2009, 12:46 pm

I don't have social anxiety offically, but I do wonder. I'm not sure to be honest, I don't know if it's just typical aspie quietness or proper social anxiety, because I never used to be this quiet and nervous around people until about age 12.


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Callista
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03 Jul 2009, 1:01 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
This has got me wondering......is anxiety still classed as social anxiety if there are no other people present at the time, e.g. getting a letter from DSS saying "we need to see you about your benefit claim" ? Or dreading an encounter with an authority figure or some other bully? (excuse the value judgement there but I'm typing in a hurry :oops: ) Or is it confined to feeling anxious when actually in the company of ordinary (and relatively harmless) people?
DSM: "A marked and persistent fear of one or more social performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others."

Yes. Feeling anxiety just thinking about a feared situation, such as when you get a letter from DSS, is one of the signs of a phobia. And yes, it includes bullies--but if it includes only bullies, than it is probably very natural social anxiety (rather than social anxiety disorder). The fear of something must occur while in the presence of the object, though it doesn't need to occur only when in the presence of that object.

I should note that many of us with life-long social anxiety (the feeling not the diagnosis) should not technically be diagnosed with social anxiety disorder because it cannot be diagnosed if the symptoms can all be explained by a pervasive developmental disorder. If, on the other hand, social anxiety occurs later in life, after the PDD without social anxiety is already evident, then it can be a separate diagnosis. Ex. a first-grader becoming frightened of being judged by the kids at school, vs. a first-grader who has always become tense in the company of others that are not extremely familiar (parents, generally).

So: If you are avoiding people because they stress you out and you like to be alone, then it is one of your autistic traits and not a social phobia. It can still be diagnosed if you once had no, or little, fear of being with people (to the limit of your desire to be alone--think of it as the difference between hating to take out the trash because the crinkle of the bag drives you nuts, vs. hating it because you are afraid you will get germs on you.)


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