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?
Definitely change the medication. There are still a ton left to try. I’d also recommended picking up a non doomscrolling hobby. It doesn’t need to be social. Something that moves your hands. Sewing, painting, writing, music (playing it or listening to it), clay crafting, knitting, learning dances, playing videogames - the goal isn’t to fix everything. It’s to figure out a calming ritual that also give you a sense of accomplishment.
Learn tricks like concentrating on your breathing to reduce panic. Breathe in for ten, hold for ten, release for ten. It can trick your body into thinking fear time is over. If your parents are unhelpful, there are books about managing anxiety and depression at the library. Learning methods from those can be a stopgap until meds help or you can see a shrink. I read some when I didn’t have health insurance. Doing meditation with youtube guides can help, but there are some mental illnesses where it makes things worse. Give it a shot in the morning a few times, see if you get anything out of it. I used to do like 3 min sessions.
Try to find things that you want to be around for more of. An album, the next book in a series - positive things are best, but “i refuse to go before (hated elderly celebrity or whoever)” is fine, in the way that nicotine is awful for you but if it keeps you going until you find useful meds, it serves a purpose.
I’m not sure how to help with social anxiety. I still suffer from it, but it went from life devestating to occassionally a problem. It’s tough because fears get better with careful, slow exposure, and most humans aren’t predictable enough to do the “look at a picture of a bee until you feel nothing then move on” type thing without guidance. If it’s any comfort, many people leave high school with drastically different levels of social skill. I’ve heard lots of LGBT people, ace people, people with overprotective parents, disability, mental illness, homeschooled kids - they’ve all spoken about how they felt like they didn’t learn how to interact and be an adult until they were older. Lots of them figured it out in their 20s and up and ended up happy and around people they care about.
Just, take your time with things.