# Do they have a Social Anxiety awareness month?



## marthatav (Jul 26, 2012)

I'm just wondering... and If we don't, we should. Personally, I think it's just as serious as cancer and any other debilitating sickness.


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## Dee65 (Oct 1, 2012)

I can see the need for it ..... but it scares me, too. I feel really uncomfortable when an adv for Mental Illness comes on the TV - I feel really conspicuous!! I think that if people learn all the symptoms, they might recognise that that is what is wrong with me. Does that make sense?


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## Donnie in the Dark (Mar 15, 2011)

But if they did....... we would worry that people we know might find out about us!

:um


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## sociallyawkward85 (Aug 7, 2011)

i think they should then there would be more support groups and more education on it, they have stuff for bipolar why not sad.


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## jc22 (Jul 5, 2012)

I think sad isn't respected enough, people think they are just shy or lack social skills etc. then it's just survival of the fittest and we lose


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## Metrodorus (Nov 22, 2012)

It's certainly a serious disease, but I think comparing it to cancer is a bit excessive and a little insensitive to cancer sufferers. However, if there is no SAD awareness month, why don't we start one ourselves?


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## Lacking Serotonin (Nov 18, 2012)

I defintely get more depressed when people are always wondering whats wrong with me.


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## sociallyawkward85 (Aug 7, 2011)

i'm willing to help advocate social anxiety awareness month but we need something to spread the word like a website and campaign it through mental health professionals and things like that.


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## himynameisshy (Dec 26, 2012)

we could just start by posting it on all the social networking sites and especially on here. if everyone on here puts it on their twitter, facebook, etc.. the word will spread in no time!


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## the phantomess (Sep 9, 2012)

This sounds like a great idea. Anyone have a suggestion for what month or even a specific day they would like? It could be in June, July, or August when students are on break, so you don't have to worry about people knowing what you have. Or maybe one of the months during the school year. Just throwing out ideas here.


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## Luvere (Dec 11, 2012)

I recall that the high school that I went to had an awareness day for social anxiety where a speaker would go to each class and talk about it. I think the main purpose was to help people understand what social anxiety is like and not to bully people about it. I actually decided to skip school that day... 

But most of the students were mature people and I was only bullied twice in high school. The first time was when some guy called me a loser when I had a panic attack and had to leave the class. I was ready to throw down the gauntlet, but I think he got enuf flak from the other students so I let it slide. 

The second time was during a business management roleplay in Career class. I think the kid was just jelly because I was a better roleplayer than he, so I ignored him.

Local awareness amongst students seems to be ok, but I doubt every place is the same.

PS I suck at paragraphing so I just tried something an English teacher told me a long time ago. "Keep paragraphs four-five lines long and no longer than ten lines". It was simple elementary stuff but it's better than a walloftext.


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## Lone-Wolf (Mar 2, 2011)

I'd rather have SA all my life then one hour thinking i have cancer, even though i have severe SA i think there are worse things that need an awareness.


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## Cileroot (Mar 6, 2012)

Psychological mental illnesses are unfortunately unknown to a majority of the population. I think having an SAD awareness day or month would be a great idea. I bet the people who suffer and do NOT know that they have SAD have it far worse than those who have been diagnosed, as they think they don't belong anywhere. I felt that way... And I bet that half of the people who have SAD never get diagnosed.

So spreading awareness would really help the society. The biggest problem, however, is that I wonder how such a thing could be organized. This center of attention being the biggest problem for the person with SAD... :con

[spoiler=Possible situation]"Hey! It's SAD day! I remember you said you got SAD once!"
"uh..yea.."
"ohoho! So?! How is it? How do you feel?!"
"well..uh, anxious around people and so on.."
"Aww, why?! Can't you just let go and be a man?!"
"uh..no, I can't"
"Why?"
"I don't know.."
"Why are you being so inadvertent?!"
"... I have SAD"
"So what! Don't use it as an excuse!"
"..."
[/spoiler]


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## Cletis (Oct 10, 2011)

Not that I'm _aware_ of...

Get it???


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## KaoJ (Jan 26, 2013)

Donnie in the Dark said:


> But if they did....... we would worry that people we know might find out about us!
> 
> :um


If more people were aware of this, it would be a big relief for me, i'm really afraid of telling people outside of my family that i have SA because i don't think they know what it is. When i got diagnosed with SA by a doctor she told me that SA is becoming more and more common, i live in a small town with only about 7000 people living here and on that week alone she told me that she had 3 other patients diagnosed with SA.


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## morrgie (Feb 6, 2013)

I think it would help people to take social anxiety more seriously. I get told all the time that the reason I have no friends is because im just shy and that all I have to do is talk to people. They don't understand how hard "just talking to people" is for me or how nervous i feel just being out in public sometimes. But I wouldn't say its as serious as cancer because SA has never threatened my life or anything.


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## Dragonair (Aug 21, 2012)

Yes! People need to stop telling us we're immature and lazy because we don't want to come out of our shell!


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## sociallyawkward85 (Aug 7, 2011)

if anyone is up to the challenge Google has a free web making service where we could some how put together a website for social anxiety awareness month, you can even make your site public on the web.

http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html


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## michael metcalf (Mar 13, 2013)

jc22 said:


> I think sad isn't respected enough, people think they are just shy or lack social skills etc. then it's just survival of the fittest and we lose


ya i didn't even know it was a thing until a couple of months ago, i thought i was the only person in the world with this much crippling shyness. i can easily go several days without saying a single thing to anybody but my close family. i think awarness would help alot of people out there with SAD who don't know they have it. just knowing it is a thing has helped me enormesly. i don't think an awarness month would be such a good idea, but alot more awarness. i live in wyoming and there are no groups, not very many therepists who are qualified to help, and it is fairly unknown to the public. :um


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## michael metcalf (Mar 13, 2013)

Dragonair said:


> Yes! People need to stop telling us we're immature and lazy because we don't want to come out of our shell!


exactly, my dad doesn't understand and just thinks i am a lazy freeloader who can't get a job. :um


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## michael metcalf (Mar 13, 2013)

morrgie said:


> I think it would help people to take social anxiety more seriously. I get told all the time that the reason I have no friends is because im just shy and that all I have to do is talk to people. They don't understand how hard "just talking to people" is for me or how nervous i feel just being out in public sometimes. But I wouldn't say its as serious as cancer because SA has never threatened my life or anything.


ya people don't understand that "just talking to someone", is like someone with a spider phobia sticking there hand in a jar full of spiders. cancer is definitely a lot worse, but SAD is extremely sucky too
:um


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## ANXPhoenix (Mar 17, 2013)

A month might be asking too much, I mean after all what's the plan for this month? I mean with Black History month and Cancer months- *Stops to Google: "months devoted to causes"* 

Uhh never mind, apparently there's months devoted to constipation, and life insurance awareness. I was going to argue that there might not be enough "Famous Social Anxiety people", research studies, public service announcements, movies, history and other material behind Social anxiety to devote a whole month to it...But I guess if you can devote a whole month to Constipation then anything is fair game.

I still think it should only be a day or two. If you wanted to be really clever make it February 29th. 
"Once every 4 years we honor our friends in hiding. We offered them a month, but they didn't like all the attention."


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## lonelygirl33 (Apr 13, 2013)

yeah I would have never known that I had social anxiety until my mom who is a psychotherapist mentioned it.


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## graymatter (Mar 31, 2011)

The first full week of October is Mental Illness Awareness Week. http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=mental_illness_awareness_week

I do believe that increasing Social Anxiety Awareness would be a good thing, however I also agree with ANXPhoenix that there are already too many awareness days/weeks/months. Devoting even a full month to just SA might not raise awareness very much.

I propose that for Mental Illness Awareness Week we all resolve to do something to promote both Mental Illness awareness and SA awareness.


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## John The Great (Jul 23, 2012)

Lol, nah, because it's not an illness at all.


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## graymatter (Mar 31, 2011)

John The Great said:


> Lol, nah, because it's not an illness at all.


Social Anxiety _Disorder_.



National Allliance on Mental Illness said:


> A mental illness is a medical condition that disrupts a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning


http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness
Sounds like SA to me.


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## John The Great (Jul 23, 2012)

graymatter said:


> Social Anxiety _Disorder_.
> 
> http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness
> Sounds like SA to me.


Everything's a disorder these days. Well, as long people are blameless for their own actions...


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## graymatter (Mar 31, 2011)

John The Great said:


> Everything's a disorder these days. Well, as long people are blameless for their own actions...


Speaking of lack of awareness, I'm not quite sure what you think it is if it's not a disorder/mental illness. But the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and probably a few dozen other reputable organizations disagree with you.

http://www.psychiatry.org/anxiety-disorders


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## WarriorGamer (Jun 6, 2013)

Dee65 said:


> I can see the need for it ..... but it scares me, too. I feel really uncomfortable when an adv for Mental Illness comes on the TV - I feel really conspicuous!! I think that if people learn all the symptoms, they might recognise that that is what is wrong with me. Does that make sense?


I have the exact same fear :|


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## dcaffeine (Oct 26, 2013)

Dang, i'd be happy if there was a social anxiety day. I personally want others to be aware that some people have a hard time dealing with people, and social situations. I wish extroverts tried to help more, but they wouldn't understand anyway.


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## Reisender314 (Jan 31, 2014)

I'm actually trying to do all of that. I'm working on a collaboration with several artists and a musician to bring a spoken word piece about SA to life. I'm trying to start a whole SA awareness project from a "Grass Roots" level. I hope to raise enough awareness to change peoples' minds on SA. More info can be found here.


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## imapseudonym (Apr 5, 2014)

I've noticed there's way too many people who use "social anxiety" synonymous with "very shy". Even worse, some think its the same as introversion, and it bothers me a lot.

An awareness month would definitely help debunk the misconceptions and show people it's actually serious and not something that could be joked about. I mean there's nothing different about it than joking about autistic kids, but people seem to have so much fun laughing about SA...


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## mike91 (Sep 23, 2012)

Dee65 said:


> I can see the need for it ..... but it scares me, too. I feel really uncomfortable when an adv for Mental Illness comes on the TV - I feel really conspicuous!! I think that if people learn all the symptoms, they might recognise that that is what is wrong with me. Does that make sense?


same


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## Kizzie (Mar 26, 2014)

*Those Who Don't Realize They have SAD*

I think about all the others who mistakenly think they are shy or introverted and suffer needlessly. It took me a very long time to figure out I have SAD (thought I was a introvert with chronic depression). I thought I was so different from everyone and that is a very lonely place to be.

So, I would love to reach out more to those folks who don't realize they have SAD so fewer people have to stumble through life without support and appropriate treatment. The more info out there the better IMO.

Kizzie


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## counsellingcro (Apr 18, 2014)

*Counseling & psychotherapy*

I'm just wondering... and If we don't, we should. Personally, I think it's just as serious as cancer and any other debilitating sickness.For social anxiety does effect on individual on direct to words mind.


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## scorch428 (Sep 2, 2013)

counsellingcro said:


> I'm just wondering... and If we don't, we should. Personally, I think it's just as serious as cancer and any other debilitating sickness.For social anxiety does effect on individual on direct to words mind.For this kind of anxiety ones need the best counselor & psychiatrist for this.


It's even more serious than cancer. Cancer doesn't last near as long =P


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