[free2live]

With the lack of support I've experienced from friends and especially family, I wonder how the support is for everyone else. With my family, they actively collude against me/spread lies about me with the intention of either suppressing me or saving their own rears from the liabilities that they had from witnessing, second-hand, the traumatic events I have been through. Does your friends and family know you have SA? Is there anyone you are able to trust implicitly? I hope that I am in the minority here. Though, unfortunately, I've learned the hard way that many people around me are very very corrupt and selfish.

 

[Phobiker]

I'm in the same boat. Many friends dumped me 'cause of SA 'cause I'm boring. I still live at home. My mum does things for me like shopping, but I get aggro from her for that. And my dad isn't interested in his mental ill child anymore since he moved out. The only ones who support me a LITTLE BIT are few friends and my elder sisters.

 

[gozinsky]

My family knows I have serious SA. They don't care and think I'm just lazy or a loser or something and should just be tough and deal with it. Hard cold dog eat dog world mentality. They used to make fun of me a lot about it when I lived with them because I would go through periods of spending a lot of time alone. I was always treated like the runt that no one liked and who didn't really matter.

 

[russophile1977]

None of my family or friends know that I have SA. I've never been close to my family. At first I didn't tell them because I didn't think they'd care, now I don't tell them because I don't think it's any of their business. But a lot of my online friends, who I've never met in real life, know that I struggle with anxiety and depression. I don't know if I've ever used the term "social anxiety" though.

 

[IllusionOfHappiness]

They know, but I'd never go to them for support. We were never the type of family to have serious discussions and share personal things.

Anyone outside family knows it as just "anxiety".

 

[livinginfear]

I've never fully explained it to anyone. It's hard to unless the other person can relate, and you'd pretty much have to have it to relate. My parents understood a little, just that I was painfully shy, and were supportive, but they're both dead now. My siblings I believe think I'm just lazy and unmotivated. I'm the baby of the family, and I think they see me as just that a "baby." There's no sympathy or support there for sure. I don't talk about it because I assume they'd think it was an excuse. In times past when I've talked about my anxiety, I'd get a response like, "Oh everybody gets nervous" so I quit talking about it. I have my children and my dogs, but they don't really know what social anxiety is I don't think, with the exception of one of my dogs -- he totally gets me. He cries and howls when I leave the house without him my oldest son told me, and he doesn't stop crying until I get back. He knows I'm not okay out there alone. :O)

 

[DeeperUnderstanding]

My mom and grandma do. The rest of my family, save for a few cousins and aunts, couldn't give two s***s about me. I come from a very dysfunctional family, and we're not a close family. Add in that I seem to be the odd man out (never had a girlfriend, never been married, still in college at my age, don't have a job), and they treat me like I'm tainted or damaged. My uncle has even treated me like I'm mentally retarded, which made me really angry at one point. I felt like throwing something at him.

I would never get support from this family. I don't really have one.

 

[free2live]

Well so far, I'm quite bitter sweet to hear that I am not alone. It boggles my mind to see that family members, ppl you'd assume would be the most supportive, are often the ones who are acting in quite the opposite manner. Why do you think this is so? What could possibly be going through their minds? I mean, it is conceivable to say you'd have to have SA to truly understand. But, an unwillingness to understand, and active rejection really irritates me. And it angers me to see that others are being treated the same way. Is the majority of the world really that selfish, inconsiderate and intolerant? I suppose this just tells ppl with SA to find support elsewhere. If you're facing this same kind of "lack of support", I hope you don't let it get to you, or better yet, are able to convince them otherwise.

For myself, since making great strides in concern to my SA (which I now believe I no longer have), family members have still not stopped this attack on my mental and emotional health, now even blaming me for not accepting them. But how can someone accept people who you know were seldom genuine, and who have actively tried to tear you down? I think I owe it to myself to protect my own well-being.

 

[shyvr6]

I don't think I will tell my family for the simple fact that they would be overbearing and would probably blow it out of proportion based on other family members in the past telling them about their problems.

 

[free2live]

I just also wanted to add that I hope this does not discourage anyone from sharing their SA probs with family members; only you yourself could know how they would likely react to your news.