zenexistence

So, I was diagnosed last year with significant social anxiety disorder which is otherwise known as 'social phobia'. The dictionary of mental illness defines this as a phobia that can make you feel trapped, shut away, unable to cope with the world.

That sounds pretty impressive, I guess, if you're not familiar with what that means. If you know what it means, well, it's about as impressive, in my opinion, as ADD. I pretty much loathe ADD (that's Attention Deficit Disorder for those of you that have living under a rock for the last decade) as it is now used as a crutch to justify everything detrimental personal issue under the sun. I'm waiting for the asshole that uses ADD to get off of a murder wrap. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure it's already been used somewhere for that very reason I am just utterly unaware of it.

Probably due to my social anxiety disorder.

I've always had a mild case of this. I was very introverted as a youth, which lessened as I aged, but social situations were always uncomfortable for no reason. I'm still relatively quiet in unknown or uncomfortable social situations but in familiar surroundings (some might say 'controlled' environment but that makes me think of a hamster in a Hab-i-trail and I refuse to be likened to a rodent, especially with those Richard Gere rumors I heard as a kid) I function remarkably well; I'm quite comfortable with attention given and received. Still, discomfort in social situations always loomed, even if not that great.

Then I went and crashed my truck into a local university cheerleaders Toyota about a year and a half ago. Not my fault, she rolled through a stop sign. I totalled her car ( take that, whore) and that in turn totalled my truck (foul bitch).

This was followed by me running my car into a Mercedes SLK (which in turn ran into a Lexus SUV, oops, sorry about that) about ten months later. TOTALLY my fault. I was in a mad hung-over rush to return home with my dead-cow sandwich and fried potato twigs from the local McNazi's in a vain attempt to cure said hangover when I rolled through a stop sign (Hi karma! Thanks for stopping by!) and, well, that's all that needs to be said about that topic.

All this running into things lead to an issue with me driving.
I would get overly-anxious in traffic, especially congested highway travel. Retarded but true. It, at its worst times, made me have to pull over while I endured a panic attack. Allow me to offer my opinion on panic attacks prior to actually having one. I thought it was an excuse tool used by weak-minded, drama-ridden schmucks.
Not anymore.
Mine were so bad that I thought I was losing my grip on sanity -- and that's not a weak-minded, drama-ridden exaggeration, not even remotely. It was terrible.

So, fast-foward to my life now.
I take a daily (or sometimes every two to three days depending on how I'm doing) dose of a magic bean called Klonopin. It's anti-anxiiety medication, which, oddly enough, also helps prevent seizures in seizure-prone individuals.

So lets hear it for those that lead a daily life fueled by chemical dependancy! Huzzah!

(Edited because I can't spell 'crutch'. What an asshole.)