Hello from a culshie living in Dublin!!!!!!

Just thought I'd pop by and say Hi!!
I'm in my late 30's.I've always been on the shy side but SA reared it's ugly head in my early teens...and I've been trying to deal with it ever since. One of the reasons I moved to the big smoke was to try and get some help for it. The services are not that great in the country!!! It was a struggle at first but I eventually found a back to work course for somebody like me
(sorry can't seem to add the link) and it was a godsend!!!! I managed to find a job and am still in it 12 years later!!!

I actually like people but am usually much more comfortable in small groups or one to one where I usually excel My SA kicks in real bad when I have to deal with a much larger group...I find it excruciating being in a group where I feel that I'm under observation and my anxiety will rise e.g work canteen small intimate restaurant. I go to sports fixtures and don't usually feel the same anxiety there for some reason! For the most part I just get on with things.
I've been on a few other sites under this name and some of you might have seen me post as Seabreeze on SPW!
Didn't know this site existed until somebody on SPW pointed me in this direction.

hi ya and welcome to the forum. can i give a bit of advice and suggest staying away from forums and groups like SPW. from my own experience it did the opposite to helping my anxiety and just made it worse. its a vicious cycle and talking to others about it does not help as your hearing all about there experiences everyday, they continue to post about how bad things are thus in return motivating others to post about how bad they are and the cycle continues day after day. social anxiety can be cured and maintained without getting relapses.

Padmasana; Thanks for the reply. I didn't really get too involved in the forums to be honest as I know what you mean about hearing TOO much negative crap. There is a mixture of so many negative emotions on SPW and other forums...which is not just the common run of the mill SA. I really just used to check in to see the Irish threads but nobody really uses them! So is this forum used?

there has nt been much activity on this forum for a while tbh. i check in every now and again to see if anyone came on here. there used to be a few regulars but work and college gets in the way and people do be too busy to come on. i guess its a good sign that they re not on as if they were on they are prob going through a bad patch and need to talk about it. no news is good news as they say.