Posted by SAD Child on April 6, 2001, at 23:29:06
In reply to Social Anxiety Disorder in Children????????, posted by fortune on February 27, 2001, at 23:07:29
> I am a 38 year old male who has recently sought treatment for depression and anxiety resulting from a stressful work situation. In searching the internet for information on anxiety, I found all this stuff on SAD that describes my symptoms perfectly. And then I ran across your description of your son - and thought I was reading about my own childhood. Let me list a number of things that happened to me during my life and see if they ring a bell with you and your son's situation:
1) Wet my pants several times in Kindergarten and first grade over fear of interacting with other children.
2) Got "stomach aches" that kept me from going to school and eventually caused me to get upper and lower G.I.'s and stomach x-rays (at seven years of age).
3) Had difficulty with school work to the point of almost being held back in the third grade (this difficulty was ascribed to "daydreaming").
4) Spent many school mornings crying, not wanting to leave home (through fifth grade!).
5) Had difficulty interacting with girls throughout middle school and high school and now regret missing many, MANY, dances and parties (luckily I now have a wonderful wife and two great boys).
6) Have always had only a small close group of friends (one or two guys) who were usually on the fringe in terms of popularity.
7) Became more sociable in college through the use (abuse) of alcohol.While most of my life has been filled with pain in meeting and getting to know new people, and public speaking or events in which I am expected to play a large part scare the be-jesus out of me, I have high hopes for the treatment which I am now undertaking. I don't know whether some of the medications available to treat this can be used in children, but I sincerely hope that you will continue to seek help for your son so that he can experience life to its fullest. I have seen a couple of sites for doctors who specialize in the treatment of this on the net (try a search on "social anxiety disorder").
Good luck to both of you
poster:SAD Child
thread:109
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/child/20000813/msgs/164.html