In certain social situations, like seeing someone I know that I have not spoken to in a while and having a conversation, or a party I go to where I see people I haven’t seen in a long time or a first date, or even sitting at the dinner table with a large number of family members or a large number of friends at a restaurant creates a GREAT deal of anxiety inside me, I believe that the symptoms of that anxiety manifest themselves in a form of facial spasms and tics, I believe that one of those is a tremor in my eyebrow, I notice people look at my eyebrow while I am speaking to them. I also believe that I have a frozen smile, sometimes after saying something with a smile on my face (which can be normal) I actually have to remind myself to stop smiling after I am done telling that story otherwise I realize that the smile stays on my face naturally. I also think that along with the eyebrow movements (which I don’t necessarily feel) there are also tremors in my cheeks while I am smiling, my hand shakes as well so drinking water or toasting drinks is something I avoid when I am nervous because the cup actually shakes on the way to my mouth and back down on the table, I also sweat a great deal and feel warm. Nobody has actually told me my face looks like its twitching or anything like that but its people looking at my eyebrows when im feeling anxious that leads me to believe this is happening, or sometimes people start giggling while they talk to me out of no where so I have to assume its something about my face that’s making them laugh. I am not afraid of parties or social situations, just uncomfortable, I happily accept and attend all kinds of events, my problem is during the first 20 min- 1 hour I am there, I experience all these terrible symptoms, and I believe that knowledge of the symptoms makes me more anxious like a snowball effect because my thoughts start to concern the symptoms of the anxiety, “did they see my hand shake when I picked up the glass?” “do I have Body Odor when I sweat and my body heats up because I am nervous?” “are they looking at my eyebrow shaking?” “do they think I have a stupid look on my face?”. If a person giggles while I am talking to them, I think its about my facial spasms. I really get bad when I speak ( I actually like speaking in groups in a sense, I am opinionated and intelligent and like to express my thoughts but it just increases the anxiety) to a group of people and I suddenly realize that they are all paying attention to me, once I actually start to notice that they are watching me while I tell the story I get more and more nervous and the symptoms start up. If I tell a funny joke and people laugh or am in the middle of a story I suddenly start feeling nervous, its funny because most people fear nobody laughing at their joke, but for some odd reason, when im actually funny, and everyone laughs at the joke I cant continue with what im saying because I start getting anxious, I think that if I simply turn myself into one of those “quite people” with a still face I can get away without feeling too uncomfortable but I don’t want to be one of those people, I don’t see myself that way and I want to express my thoughts when I am out with people, I just don’t want to get nervous, a lot of what I read about social phobia mentions fear of being embarrassed and I don’t know about that, maybe on an unconscious level but I don’t feel that way personally, I believe my problem is that I try to read peoples minds, I wonder what they are thinking about me, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a concern of negative thoughts but simply “what are they thinking?” will get me nervous and then once the symptoms like eyebrow movement start that’s when the negative thoughts come in and I wonder if they are watching my eyebrows then my heart rate goes up and then I sweat and so on…. Looking away helps, but then i worry about them noticing no eye contact, massaging my eyebrow relieves the problem for a while but as soon as eye contact is made the symptoms reappear. I started taking 10mg inderal an hour before these events and its helped a lot, I don’t sweat, no more hand shaking, and I don’t feel my heart race or body heat up, however I still think I have the eyebrow movement, the only problem is that I’ve asked two people about it and they say they have never seen it happen, whats funny is that I’ve never seen them look at my eyebrow while talking to them, but I have noticed a lot of other people look at my eyebrows when speaking, but always feel embarrassed to ask them about whether they actually see it or not, since i am anxious around them, it wouldnt make sense to be comfortable to ask a question like that anyway right? As the night progresses I feel better and better and begin to function normally in the social situation . One thing that really screws with me is women, I am much more comfortable around the guys, at a party if a group of guys are sitting around chatting I can hold a conversation calm and collected, if there are women I am attracted to around I get all the symptoms, I get nervous and all the bad stuff happens, with the help of inderal the only bad thing I notice is the facial stuff, everything else is fine, I can also handle myself around women I am not that attracted to, that includes dates, but when I am around women I am attracted to either at a party or on a date I am a wreck, what is this exactly? Ive been thinking about cognitive behavioral therapy but what do you actually think my problem is? Is it as simple as labeling it as social anxiety?

I would also like to add that my “thoughts” aren’t like 20 minutes of straight thinking, its all happening in the moment during the social interaction, so this whole theory of controlling thoughts sounds strange to me because I actually don’t see myself “thinking” while talking to someone, I don’t think nervous, I FEEL nervous so it’s a strange concept for me to get my head around that one solution is to direct thoughts in a certain way because these thoughts I have are natural and quick and the feelings are natural too. I have also found that going to the gym has helped with this a little.

I recently bought some suntheanine from jarrow formulas 200 mg, im hoping it helps calm me down, anyone use this before?

its funny, I never knew anxiety could be attached to sleeplessness, my problem is falling asleep, once im sleeping, I can stay asleep for a while, but my mind races for a while before I can fall asleep, sometimes hours, I wish I could be one of those people that puts their head on a pillow and just falls asleep.

I should also mention where I think I got the facial spasms from, because even though I have always been uncomfortable in party situations I never had that problem, I think I developed it from poker, I got into texas holdem years ago and spent a long time playing in a local casino, anticipation of the cards coming out created a real rush inside me with my heart pounding like crazy and my hands shaking a lot, and I THINK what happened was that those rushes were so strong that I developed the facial spasms, and that my body basically learned to react that way to any kind of adrenaline rush whether its from the excitement of playing on the table or the anxiety I feel in social situations, you know ive never been comfortable in social situations but its really just the symptoms I am trying to get rid of, I eventually get used to my surrounding and calm down after a while anyway, but I will work on my negative self talk, and a great deal of my initial anxiety is due to the symptoms anyway, if I can get rid of them then my first few negative thoughts can be redirected to more positive thoughts, and wouldn’t have all the symptoms concerns. please let me know what you guys think, i know this is a medication alternative forum but what do you guys recommend?