If you have a fear of social situations that makes you feel sick, or give you other strong symptoms that seem to go way beyond mere shyness in public, then the chances are pretty likely that you’re experiencing social anxiety disorder symptoms. These tend to begin as cognitive, or psychological symptoms, but they soon grow into physical symptoms as well, which result in changes in behavior that are themselves another category of symptoms of this disorder.
The symptoms tend to manifest in similar ways whether you’re dealing with specific phobias, such as severe stage fright or a more generalized anxiety about any public situation. The starting place of the social anxiety disorder symptoms is usually your thought patterns, the cognitive area, where you perceive other people as being ready to make negative judgments about you. You are so self-conscious that you might make more mistakes, reinforcing your feelings that you can’t do anything right. Soon you may become afraid of being in social situations of any type.
Your thoughts and perceptions then lead almost inevitably to social anxieties that manifest in physical ways. Indeed, these are often thought of as the main symptoms of this type of disorder. You might blush to an extreme, sweat a lot, or begin to experience heart palpitations, nausea or trembling in social situations.
And because you manifest these visible symptoms, they may make you feel even more foolish or embarrassed, adding to your anxiety and producing further symptoms such as an anxiety attack.
The longer the social anxiety disorder symptoms go on in the cognitive and physiological realm, the more likely you will be to end up suffering social isolation. The behavioral aspect of this anxiety disorder often leads people to avoid jobs, classes or social situations where they have to interact with strangers or even relate to people at all. If you experience these growing symptoms, then you need to be diagnosed and begin receiving proper treatment, to keep from ending up as someone who can’t take a step outside their own door.
There are many different approaches to treating anxiety and panic disorders, from exposure therapy for panic attacks to herbal remedies that relieve the symptoms. Learn more at the Panic and Anxiety Disorders site.