If you are a mom (or dad) with social anxiety disorder (SAD) you might worry about how your behavior influences your children growing up. For instance, if you display anxiety around strangers will your child pick up on it and behave the same way? If you are reluctant in encouraging your child to engage with others will she be less likely to do so?
A couple of studies out of the United Kingdom suggest that these are valid concerns and that social anxiety in parents can have an impact on social functioning in children.
A 2007 study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry investigated the impact of maternal behavior and early infant characteristics on infant social responsiveness. Half of the moms in the study suffered with SAD and the other half did not. Moms were observed interacting alone with their infant as well as with a stranger and their infant. When with the stranger, moms with SAD were more anxious, talked less to the stranger, and encouraged their infant to engage less with the stranger than moms without SAD. In turn, these infants showed less social responsiveness to the stranger. In addition, infants who showed early neonatal irritability were even more likely to respond less.
In a second study published in 2006 in the journal, Behavior Research and Therapy, 24 moms (without SAD) were trained to behave in either a socially anxious or non-anxious manner with a stranger in front of their infant (aged 12 to 24 months). The infants were then observed interacting with the stranger on their own. Infants whose moms had behaved in a socially anxious manner were more fearful and avoidant of the stranger. Infants who were naturally more fearful were affected to a greater degree by their mom’s behavior.
What does this mean if you are a parent with SAD? The way you interact with strangers in front of your children counts.
If you want to give your child the best leg up, try to engage more with strangers and encourage your child to engage more as well. Although this may be difficult if you suffer with SAD, consider it a personal challenge with an important motivating factor; your actions can have a lasting impact on your child. Children who are genetically predisposed to anxiety and fear need even more encouragement and positive role modeling.
How else can you combat the impact of SAD on your child? Have her spend lots of time with adults who are not socially anxious! This might include your spouse, parents, aunts and uncles, or anyone else that is close to your family and willing to help out modelling positive social behavior in situations with unfamiliar people.
What do you think? Are you fearful of the impact of SAD on your child?
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Filed under Anxiety by on May 16th, 2012. 
It isn’t every day you come across someone with the determination of Wayne Cho. Cho is completing a 16,000 mile journey around the world in an effort to increase awareness about mental illness. He began his run in Vancouver, British Columbia on January 1st, 2012.
Since then he has logged over 1600 miles while traveling down the coast to Los Angeles, California. The next segment of his trip will take him through the desert to Las Vegas; no small feat considering that we are heading into the warmer months.
Why is he doing all this? Wayne knows firsthand what it is like to suffer with mental illness. Childhood abuse left him struggling with anxiety and mood disorders; but this young man is not one to quit. At age 30, he became a long distance runner as a way to cope with anxiety and increase his confidence.
Prior to the world run, Wayne completed a 5400 mile run across Canada to raise awareness about anxiety and depression. His current journey will take him through 22 countries over the course of three years.
Wayne has been running alongside a driver; for safety, companionship and a way to store his belongings. He is currently looking for a new volunteer driver-companion as of mid-May to help him through the desert. Planning a late-spring RV trip from LA to Vegas? Perhaps you could give him a hand.
I think Wayne deserves a lot of credit for the undertaking, particularly because he has not received much support from the media thus far; hopefully that will change.
What do you think? Can events such as Wayne’s run across the world make a difference in raising awareness about mental illness?
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Filed under Anxiety by on May 3rd, 2012.
Have you heard of behavioral experiments? The idea behind these little tricks is to pick something to do that would normally embarrass you or that you would try to avoid.
Start small and build up your ability to do these types of things. Do the easier ones first and the harder ones later.
Ideally these are things that make you feel a little or a lot embarrassed, but don’t hurt anyone else.
For once, your goal is to become embarrassed or have others judge you! Below is a list of 20 ideas to get started.
- Dance in public as though there is music.
- Ask someone for directions to the place where you are.
- Pretend to fall down.
- Intentionally forget someone’s name.
- Pretend to recognize someone you don’t know.
- Sing in public.
- Pay entirely with pennies.
- Go up to a random person and say “How are you doing?”
- Ask for directions and then go the opposite way.
- Sit and read a magazine upside down.
- Wear something completely out of character for you (think high heels or cowboy boots).
- Ask for a discount on something.
- Wear something outlandish (like a crazy hat).
- Try to sell your stuff to telemarketers when they call you.
- Go to McDonalds and order a Whopper.
- Knock over your water in a restaurant.
- Go to a restaurant on your birthday and have them sing to you.
- Press the wrong button for someone in an elevator.
- Pay with the wrong bills.
- Show up late somewhere and make a spectacle of yourself.
What would you add to the list?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Apr 25th, 2012.
If you live in the Chicago area you might be interested in taking part in a unique form of treatment known as “improv boot camp”. Counsellor Mark Pfeffer uses Second City Improv training as one part of a three-part treatment program for anxiety disorders including social anxiety disorder (SAD).
The improv program involves 8 weekly sessions at Second City training in improvisation as well as 8 weekly treatment support group sessions. Although the price tag is a little hefty at $ 515, participation in the program does also grant you some perks as a member of the Second City Comedy Club.
How well could improv training work in treatment SAD? Have a look at the story of one graduate of the program and see what you think. It seems like success could be in large part due to the confidence building aspect of the improv training.
We do know that many actors and comedians who were shy as children were put in acting classes by their parents. Many of them credit acting with helping them to overcome shyness to some degree.
In addition to the improv classes, Pfeffer offers individual therapy as well as a recovery program; he stresses making written plans for change and the importance of a group setting.
What do you think? Would you have the courage to take improv training? Do you think it would help your social anxiety?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Apr 21st, 2012.
The About.com Reader’s Choice Awards have come to a close and I am now announcing the winners in the social anxiety disorder category. Unfortunately, there were not even votes cast to determine a clear winner in the “Best SAD Self-Help Tool” category. While I am a little disappointed, this was the first year for the SAD categories and a chance to find out what readers are passionate about.
It turns out you are passionate about your SAD websites! Out of the five nominees, you choose Social Anxiety UK as the clear winner; this website received 50% of the votes cast. Second place went to Social Phobia World with 25% of the votes, and in third place was The Social Phobic with 12%.
My own site, About.com at SAD only brought in 3% of the votes but I am not taking it personally! I am just glad that readers came out to vote and support their favorite sites. I know that every site has something different to offer and perhaps caters to a different audience; hopefully my site fills a niche that the others do not.
Where do we go from here? I would love to get your feedback about whether I should run the awards again next year, and if so, what new categories I could introduce?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Apr 10th, 2012.
More than 30 About.com health guides collaborated to produce articles titled “10 Things to Stop Doing” in various areas of your life to improve health and well-being. I was lucky enough to be the coordinator of the project; the idea started with my own article titled “10 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself if You Have Social Anxiety Disorder”. In the spirit of the new article I added “10 Things to Stop Doing if a Loved One Has SAD.” Read more…
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Filed under Anxiety by on Apr 2nd, 2012.
I am a fan of a little website called “Marc and Angel Hack Life“. The site is filled with thought-provoking articles about things to start doing, stop doing, and think about why you are doing. In addition, the site has an article with 365 thought-provoking questions to ask yourself.
This week I am going to keep my post relatively brief, by listing my versions of some of the “thought” questions from their site. I have adapted them to fit people with social anxiety disorder (SAD).
I would like to invite everyone to respond in the comments with answers to any or all of the questions. I think it will be interesting to share and read answers amongst ourselves.
Here goes…
- What social situations are you better at today than you were one year ago?
- What would you do differently in social situations if you knew nobody was judging you?
- If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak badly to yourself, what would you say to your friend?
- What has life taught you lately about living with anxiety?
- Can you describe your fears in a six word sentence?
- How do you want to be remembered at the end of your life?
- What is your best quality?
- When do you feel most at ease?
- If you could choose one day to live over again, which day would you choose?
- If today was the last day of your life, how would you live it?
- Have you ever been spontaneous?
- What decision has most changed your life?
- What do you worry about at night?
- Who do you enjoy being around?
- What first impression do you want to give?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Mar 26th, 2012.
If you have been harassed at work for having social anxiety disorder (SAD) or been fired from a job because you complained about the poor behavior of coworkers towards you, pay attention to this story.
Jeffrey Spoonley, a former sales associate with “Family Video” in Glenview, Illinois is being awarded $ 70,000 as part of a disability discrimination suit launched by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Spoonley was reportedly harassed at work because of his depression and SAD, and was later fired after he complained about the harassment.
Family Video is one of the largest retailers of movies and games in the U.S. with more than 735 stores and over 7000 employees. In addition to the settlement, the company is now being required to hire an Equal Employment Coordinator to put discrimination procedures in place, offer training, and manage complaints.
The EEOC is responsible for ensuring federal laws are enforced in cases of employment discrimation. The organization reports that it will continue to prosecute companies that discriminate by firing employees due to disabilities or in retaliation to complaints about harassment.
This comes on the heels of the case of UK resident Nathan Roberts suing Northwest Ambulance Service in Manchester for not accomodating his SAD. Roberts was part of a “hot desking” policy in which employees were required to move desks frequently; ultimately Roberts quit because of his discomfort about the inconsistent desk space.
I see a few positives about these stories:
- Social anxiety disorder is being recognized as a legitimate disability in the workplace.
- Employers are being held accountable for their discriminatory actions with respect to employees with SAD.
- Employees with SAD are standing up for themselves.
For a disorder that still walks in the shadows much of the time, these are huge steps forward. Hopefully cases like this will act as a deterrent, and more companies will institute anti-discriminiation procedures to prevent this type of harassment from happening in the first place.
Have you been harassed at work because of social anxiety? How did you handle it?
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Filed under Anxiety by on Mar 19th, 2012.