Went Back to School, Going Back to School with Social Anxiety

I haven't posted here in a long time but I think I am going to start. I recently went back to college nearly 9 years after I took my last in-person class. I have been trying to go back this entire time, which has consisted of many online classes and withdrawing from many classes.

In 1 week I will have completed my 2nd full-time semester since going back. I attend a very large university, perhaps the largest in the U.S., and I take all my classes in person. I should have 1 more year left. I still have a lot of problems, but I'm not going to get into all of those right now.

I will post more later on school, my challenges and triumphs.

Socialphobialife.com - What is the deal with this site?

I was looking at some social phobia/anxiety forums and came across this site socialphobialife.com ( no, It is not my site). I thought I might want to join, so I tried. Three times. Never got any confirmation emails. I used different emails at different domains to see if that was the issue. Anyway it doesn't appear I could register at socialphobialife.com.

I also noticed something. There were not many posts from real members and the few real members were complaining about the board being spammed. Why did I notice this? Well, I noticed something else interesting connected to this social phobia life site.

I won't get into that right now, at least not publicly.

But if anyone knows what the deal is with this socialphobialife.com forum let me know. I thought I would give it a chance, but there are some well-established forums already out there without the questions.

When even Dealing with others with Social Phobia Causes Anxiety

It's been awhile. This blog was never meant to be anything more than a personal space to talk about my personal experiences of nearly 30 years dealing with social phobia aka social anxiety disorder. I am not a medical professional or a therapist- just someone who has lived this $#%^ ( stuff).

Over the past year several readers have contacted me through my personal website to discuss social anxiety. If you have it or know anything about social anxiety you know how difficult it is to deal with others.

I have found it is no easier dealing with others with S.A. The other night I found myself depressed because at one time I was having email conversations with 5 people. However all of those people simply stopped responding or haven't responded in months.

All of these people found me on my website and sought out the conversation with me. We discussed very personal things.

So what did I say or do to run-off several people, even those who also have social anxiety?

New Social Phobia Site

I am going to be working on a new social phobia site, socailphobia.com-Social Phobia

Hoping to Post More

Well, I haven't posted a lot lately either on the blog or main site. A lot of personal issues since I last posted that I'd rather not get into. Still doing the old "I have social phobia so I hope to make a living online" type thing. I hope as I feel more secure in my efforts, I will devote more time to blogging. At this point I am doing a lot of work on things that should actually be profitable. Something I don't see happening with Social Anxiety blogging ( not much of a market for it).

Hopefully I can work more on my personal sites, but my motivation for this stuff is low and energy comes in highly concentrated bursts.

Having a Hard Time Concentrating

I don't feel like my social anxiety is that bad these days..Well, I don't know because I don't really go out. I am more in a depressed funk. It is hard getting anything done, and my sleep schedule is all out of whack. I look at a book and have a hard time concentrating.

I am still taking classes and thought I was all motivated to go back and "finish school." These days I just want to work on web sites and hope something sticks so that I will never have to get a "job." I don't know if there is a point to finishing if that's the case.

I am really glad that I started working on websites 5-6 years ago though, and more seriously the last two years. Because of that, I do have some residual income. The problem I have is building on those successes. I've considered trying to diversify the way I get my web traffic, though. Instead of just relying on search engines, I've tried cheap promotional products, like pens and magnets with my websites on them, working some social medai, and I also bought some local classified ads to test them out.

I tried doing one of those Money Mailer coupon things for one of my seasonal products, but the sales person was impossible to deal with. I think I'll keep that story private though.

It's hard to even get the energy to type here or work on any sites. I don't want to just rely on my past efforts getting me through life.

The Third Party Perception of Social Phobics

I have been making a point to search for other blogs and websites that deal with social phobia. Sometimes I come across some interesting developments. Other times I find posts that make me think "Why haven't I written about that?" or "Yeah, that sounds normal to me. I thought everyone knew?" I recently came across an interesting post:
Social phobics have third party memories

Basically, a study has shown that social phobics tend to view memories of themselves from another person's perspective. I have always felt like this and been conscious of this for at least 4-5 years.

I have decided to explore this in a little more depth on my personal social phobia website. I have needed something to write about, and my anxiety has been depressing and boring as of late. So I will start off writing a little about this and (hopefully) get the ball rolling as far as updating my site more with thoughts on this and other SA perspectives.
Read my article:
Social Phobia- Living a Third Party Reality

on my website
Social Phobia Living