Social anxiety disorder is an illness that isolates people sometimes even from their loved ones. It can be difficult to explain the feelings and circumstances of your illness sometimes especially to those closest to you, and the impact of the disorder is certain to have an impact on all family members. The toll of social anxiety disorder can be damaging to relationships, as misunderstandings and conflict over refusal to attend certain functions or outings or meet new people create hurt feelings, anger or resentments.
However, avoiding talking to relatives or loved ones about social anxiety disorder will do nothing to help the situation. Actually the longer things continue and you don’t explain your disorder the worse things will probably become.
Gather materials on social anxiety disorder. You can get a library book, a pamphlet from an organization such as the National Institute on Mental Health , the ADAA (Anxiety Disorders Association of America) or NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) .
Explain how the particulars of the disorder affect you. Use particular incidents to give examples of how social anxiety has impacted your life in ways they’ve observed. For instance, “Last month when I canceled at the last minute our dinner plans with your boss and his wife I was feeling very anxious and just felt overwhelmed.”
Give details on how social anxiety affects you, listing your specific symptoms. For example say whenever I go to the grocery store, I feel like my heart is beating out of my chest when I get to the checkout lane, my hands start trembling and I break out into a cold sweat.
Give an overview of situations that cause you stress and the timeline for those anxiety-producing events. You could explain that when you know you have class on Wednesday nights, by Monday you start worrying about whether you can stay for the whole class period. A few hours before class you may start having stomach pains and be unable to eat. When you arrive at the school you have trouble taking full breaths and get dizzy. When you walk into the room, you are unable to make eye contact and try to arrive early so you can get a seat alone at the back of the room.
Talk about the earliest memories you have of being social anxious and how it progressed over time.
Explain the different ways you’ve tried to cope with the disorder alone and how effective, or non-effective those attempts have been.
Discuss your treatment options and plans with family members.
If you are seeing a professional for your social anxiety disorder enlist their tips for your family members, giving concrete examples of how they can help you.
Tell your family the things they do that are helpful to you and the things that tend to make you feel worse. Be certain not to speak in terms that same to lay blame on them.
Let them know some of your goals in dealing with your social anxiety disorder so they can both hold you accountable in a supportive method and celebrate your successes.
Remember social anxiety tends to run in families so be prepared for some one to bring up their own issues when you have your talk. Don’t attempt to be their counselor but be mutually supportive and share information on the disorder in the most open way you can.