Social anxiety related to withdrawal

[Phil]

Hi guys.

I wasnt sure where to post this, hope this is the right section.

 

I'm posting this really just to discuss, and make sense of my own problem.

 

Recently I have noticed this horrible sense of depersonalization, whenever I am around people. I feel that there is just too much to process in my environment. I'm easily triggered by sudden movement, and find it hard to re-adjust my body and movements.

And with my friend who I see regularly, I have lost my ability to empathize, it's like my brain is only processing things logically. My memory and concentration are awful. I am also easily stressed by anything remotely negative.

I had an argument with my friend today, and just got soooooo angry and pissed off. It took ages for me to get over it. And its not like me, I could sense it somewhere, but I just couldnt stop myself raging (not to him, I was just talking to myself when I got home).

 

I've had social anxiety for years, before I went on meds, even when I was a kid, so that's probably part of what's exacerbating this. But Ive never experienced anything this bad.

 

Anyway I was reading around about serotonin and tryptophan online, and came across some study about acute tryptophan depletion and how it affects emotional processing.

 

It's like a lightbulb went off!!

 

I cant find the original article but I saved a word document on it, here's the main parts:

 

The adaptive function of these changes may be related to functions of serotonin in depression and anxiety.

As mentioned earlier, it seems likely that ATD reduces serotonergic function, though there may be some question as to the

exact mechanism by which this occurs. Reduced serotonin function is associated with greater anxiety and lowered mood, which

may be associated with a more threatening and risky environment. In such environments it may be more adaptive to attend to

external precipitants of emotional expressions, rather than the underlying mental states. In such cases, attention to the

goal of gaze would be more adaptive than attention to the mental state underlying an emotional expression.

To summarize our findings, we suggest that serotonin mediates the impact of a facial expression on emotion perception with

marked consequences for empathic reactivity and emotional learning. Impaired serotonin function facilitates a shift of

observer's attention to the goal of gaze rather than mental state associated with another's emotional expression.

This may reflect adaptive changes to environmental modulators of mood, and may have implications for our understanding of

disorders that involve dysfunctional serotonergic activity including depression (Caspi et al., 2003), autism

(Devlin et al., 2005; McDougle et al., 2005) and psychopathy (Dolan and Anderson, 2003). Overall our work suggests a

potentially powerful neurotransmitter based brain mechanism that could mediate between mental well-being and patterns of

thinking that may heavily influence social behavior.

The bits I highlighted relate to what I'm experiencing. I've had this problem before, after I cold-turkeyed meds years ago. As I recall, it did improve eventually, but I think it became almost like a "learned habit", and because I didnt know what was causing it, I thought it was me.

 

It's a relief to finally understand this. But, I'm also worried. I hate being this way, I have no friends apart from my best friend, and with withdrawal I am prevented from improving. I have very little support, I don;t even see my family often.

I'm due to get some therapy for my longterm anxiety issues soon. I'm wondering whether I should try taking tryptophan supplements? I know this isnt recommended during withdrawal, but Im just so sick of being lonely and isolated.

 

Anyway, sorry for babbling guys. I hope this post makes some kind of sense. It's helped me to write it out anyway.

 

Can anyone relate to these social anxiety problems? If you have been off meds for a long time, how have things progressed for you?

[Hopeful]

Phil, forgive me if it is posted somewhere else, but how long have you been off of the medication?

[angie007]

Hi Phil,

 

I can sympathise with your social anxiety situation,

and mine only appeared during my taper. Most uncomfortable and disturbing symptom,

and mine had to appear when my husband took me to the caribbean for my wedding anniversary.

I was on 8mg [paxil at the time ad had been tapering for a couple of years, anyway we got

to this all inclusive resort, and after unpacking and showering we made our way down to the restaurant.

It was packed of course lol, people laughing, kids whining - not that i got an ything against kids you understand,

 

we arrive at the restaurant and i had the most uneasy feeling come over me, i felt sick, was shaky, sweating,

i felt so ill, the waiters collecting plates, the noise, it sounded so loud, it was deafening, and i started crying,

so we made our way back to the lounge where i told my husband.

As this had never happened to me before i was petrified, i had no idea what was happening.

The next day, i tried again, still the same thing happened, anywhere where there

 

i just couldnt do it, i was so upset, poor hubby had to go eat on his own,.

it got that bad, that my husband was bringing my breakfast down to the beac h, as at the time he had no idea why i was reacting

in that way, and it caused one or two arguments during our stay too.

I never experienced that again im happy to say, as it was awful.

If you have suffered with that for a long time, i can only sympathise knowing how rotten it made me feel.

 

I truly hope that as you heal this will go away for you too.

And to say, you are right about the noise/light sensitivity connection too, i had noticed that, before the social anxiety kicked in.

Overall, not a nice experience, holiday was good though, i goty waited on hand, finger and foot lol.

[angie007]

IMHO i dont think i would consider tryptophan, i believe i n letting nature

take its course, once bitten, twicew shy my friend.

Too scared to take anything anymore

[Healing]

This is a very interesting find, Phil. If I’m understanding it correctly, it could be interpreted as suggesting that reduced serotonin makes you feel like you’re in a threatening environment and makes you react in a more paranoid way. This is certainly my experience.

 

People who have experience of bad LSD trips *and* SSRI w/d say there are similarities – that the environment becomes sinister-seeming.

[Phil]

Hopeful - I'll update my introduction thread soon, but I'm still taking a small amount of Lexapro at 1mg at the moment.

 

Angie, thanks for sharing, I can soooo relate to your experience in the restaurant! Sometimes I feel like a weirdo for having these reactions. I was shopping with my friend yesterday but it all just got on top of me, the noise, the movements, people around me etc. I just wanted to run away.

Sometimes this has got so bad to the point where my friend might be coughing, and the noise goes right through me.

 

I think what makes it worse with me, is that I fight it, and try to pretend I'm ok, when really I'm not (cos I'm scared of looking like a weirdo, and people seeing me fearful).

 

At least you got waited on, Angie I wish someone would do that for me haha.

[Phil]

This is a very interesting find, Phil. If I’m understanding it correctly, it could be interpreted as suggesting that reduced serotonin makes you feel like you’re in a threatening environment and makes you react in a more paranoid way. This is certainly my experience.

 

People who have experience of bad LSD trips *and* SSRI w/d say there are similarities – that the environment becomes sinister-seeming.

 

I think that's right, Healing. I've always had social anxiety anyway, before meds (that's why I went on them to start with), but after coming off them, I started feeling threatened around people, for no specific reason (before meds, my social anxiety was specific to highschool). I've always known logically that everything is ok but there was a 'sensation' of threat. I catch myself looking around and scanning the evironment, without realizing I'm doing it.

[jonnypeters1234567]

Does anyone struggle with severe social anxiety in this? Even with close loved ones? Burning face, sweats, anxiety?

 

This was the reason I was put on the medication and it has excasabated it recently

[Gridley]

I've always had social anxiety, but withdrawal has definitely intensified it.  

[jonnypeters1234567]

How do you cope?

[Gridley]

I don't push myself.  I do whatever socializing I'm capable of (not a whole lot), but I try to be gentle with myself and don't overextend.  

[RusTW]

jonnypeters1234567   do you work. If so how do you cope with the anxiety during your work shift