New user here so be nice or something
Hey guys, I’m a 17yo guy and I suffer from bad social anxiety. I got diagnosed with social anxiety when I was 11, and it got really apparent when I went to high school and have developed symptoms of depression, such as thoughts of suicide and sleeping all the time. It was also the time where my social skills deteriorated, and now today I basically have zero social skills. I take 100mg of sertraline every day but it doesn’t do shit to me except give me really bad heartburn occasionally. However I keep taking it because maybe something will change, but in a couple of weeks from now I have an appointment with my doctor and I’ll ask if he could change my medication. So far, vaping is the only “medication” that sorta helps with my social anxiety and heavily calms me down, however I don’t do it all the time because it’s my dad’s and it’s a disposable. I could ask for vapes in school but I have no friends who vape, in fact, I have no friends in general anymore and only have acquaintances in school and people who used to be my friends but moved, which ends up in not being as close to me anymore. I could ask random vapers but ofc I can’t because social anxiety.
My life outside school is really isolating and depressing. I barely have any hobbies and all I do is lay on my bed and doomscroll and sleep and mess up my sleep schedule. I don’t post on Reddit anymore because they IP banned me off the whole fucking site. They even track the device I use so they’ll still ban me even with a VPN. Now I have to resort to here because I have no other way to tell; my parents think I’m delusional for having mental illness so I don’t tell them. Anyways, I have no social interaction at home except my parents, and absolutely no one texts me. I’m absolutely not OK with this lifestyle. I’m always fucking bored and I wish I had friends I could hang out with. I have no siblings. A side effect coming with my social anxiety is that I don’t fit in anywhere so it’s really hard to find new friends. I heavily feel like I’m missing out on my teenage years by rotting in isolation because of social anxiety. What do you think I should do?
The tricky part about anxiety is it could have many causes, but the most common cause by far is just accidentally developing a pattern of thinking that creates anxiety and getting stuck there. You’ve identified what the problem is, you’ve decided you want to change it, and now you’re gathering information before you make plans and take action to begin changing it.
None of this will be as applicable to your specific situation as you would get from seeing a therapist. Consider doing what we call “opposite action.” If you have the urge to doomscroll, intentionally do the opposite and go outside for a walk. If you want to spend the day alone in your room, instead go to a restaurant and eat by yourself but in public. Small things like this will help you break out of your patterns and begin to realize the world is not a very scary place. One of the most common misconceptions is that all the people out there will notice all your faults. In reality, most people couldn’t care less about your faults, and you would be surprised how many people out there would love to connect with you. There are always going to be negative interactions sometimes, but try not to let those get to you and just move on.
Also, set a strict cutoff time at night for your devices, and stick with it. If you have trouble sleeping, take a melatonin, read a calming book, drink something warm, whatever you need to do, but keep your phone off. It’s hard to overstate the negative effects doomscrolling and a lack of sleep are probably having on your mental health