Posted by bulldog2 on May 27, 2008, at 15:30:23
In reply to Re: SOCIAL ANXIETY / OCD/ ADHD CURE --100%, posted by bulldog2 on May 27, 2008, at 12:43:25
> > Philipa, I don't have any links but my doctor, who is an ADHD specialist and professor at Stanford, seems to believe that the root cause of most social anxiety stems from an underlying attention deficit conditon. Particularly if you're suffering from an overfocused type of adhd.
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> > Many people with social anxiety are perfectionists, typically highly intelligent and analytical and care deeply about others and especially about how others perceive them. Perfectionism, I believe, is the bridge between ADHD and social anxiety. For ex. Someone says something about your physical appearance. Your ADHD kicks in and you hyperfocus/obsess about what that person said to you. You are unable to let go of it. The next time you are out in public, you're obsessing about what that person said and then someone says something else..perhaps about your face going red....the cycle continues and the neural networks of self-defeat become more entangled with negative thinking. A person with ADHD overfocused(which is really just ADHD co morbid OCD) can never let go of what they perceive as negative criticisms...they constantly worry and in an effort to control their worries and what they perceive as a painful environment, perfectionism ensues...and 15 to 20 years later, they have severe social anxiety and agoraphobia and depression etc....
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> > My doc believes that 90% of people with ADHD go untreated into adulthoold and only show up in his office later for treatment of secondary issues such as anxiety and depression and unfortunatley..the adhd may have metastasized into bipolar if left untreated for too long. As children, they were never diagnosed with ADHD because most overfocused types with social anxiety are highly intelligent. I received straight A's in school so why would anyone give me a stimulant for ADHD?? right?(It didn't matter that I would randomly get up in front of class as a kid and pull my pants down while my teachers were writing on the chalk board yet when my teachers would call on me, I could never speak, out of fear that I might sound stupid or blush)Phillipa, there's clearly a great deal that the medical community doesn't understand about all these disorders but I believe, as does my psychiatrist, that ADHD, social anxiety and even some forms of bipolar depression run together. I DO think that stimulant medications can be very effective treatment for some forms of social anxiety(which seems paradoxical) and that Desoxyn is the superior med. I'm actually weaning off my Klonopin b/c I no longer need it to control peripheral anxiety(the irritable, shaky anxiety that Adderall and Ritilin and Dex caused).
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> If this information is actually valid as concerns adhd and social anxiety/phobias than I know understand my downhill spiral. My adhd was not diagnosed until i was in my forties and all the stims pooped out on me so I was never treated for the condition.
> You scenario rings so true. Once while having a paper crtiqued in a very embarressing way in high school my face turned beet red and I was aware of hyperfocusing on that. From that day onward I would have panic attacks/social phobia whenever I would speak before people. Of course some people would make fun of my red face or mention it until I became so focucsed on it I would have blushing attacks just speaking to one or two persons.
> Almost any situation where there was a negative response would invoke intense inward hyperfocusing that would than always repeat with the same response in the future.
> So in fact the adhd might be the driving force behind my anxiety and chronic depression and obsessive tendencies.If I remember the sequence of events correctly the first manisfistation of my add was hypofocus. I could only pay attention for short periods of time before my mind wandered to another topic of interest. Because my mind couldn't stay with a topic long enough I began to make mistakes in my judgement.I did daredevil things that injured me, spoke out in class as the teacher spoke and just got myself into trouble. So I no longer trusted my mind to do the right thing and had to develope hyperfocus as another component of my mind to oversee everything and was in a constant state of vigilance to protect myself from myself. Once one becomes hypervigilant you are no longer a spontaneous person and all the problems mentioned above begin to emerge. However if you begin treatment in adulthood and present multilple symptoms the p-doc is often at a loss of where to start.
I believe in many cases you have to treat add as the root cause and treat that first and than move upward and see how things have unfolded.
poster:bulldog2
thread:831249
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080519/msgs/831449.html