Seeking constitutional remedy for social phobia _{Page 13 of 20}

Ok, thanks. I have done so.
Update on the remedy: After the 3rd week the most recent dose of Germanium finally started to have a positive effect, although it's still subtle. So now I don't know what to do because I want to do this right but the Germanium always takes about a month, makes me feel depressed for several weeks, and then makes changes that only I can see. I know that's what really matters, but still, to explain what I mean:

I had to go to an interview with a government agency. I thought it went fine, I felt very comfortable, for me, but the counselor I was talking to told me things that in the past would have been really hurtful, like that it didn't seem like I would be able to get a job because I seem really weird. Those were her words. The last time I had an experience like that I got depressed afterward, but I feel ok now, so I must be getting less sensitive to what people think.

So although that's obviously progress and I like it, it would be really good if I could someday NOT seem really weird to people. It would help me get by in the world. But I guess that's more superficial than my mental state so I shouldn't focus on it?

So basically I'm impatient for something to happen that hasn't happened yet, which makes me want to switch remedies, but I'm worried about whether that's the right approach.

It's just that I'm feeling sort of claustrophobic in here. And lonely. I want to live.

The counselor said I wouldn't look at her, so I guess I still have a problem with eye contact.

How big of a deal is it to switch remedies when it's still working? Does it mess everything up, or can I just come back to it if the new one doesn't help? If I stick with the Germanium, can I jump to the next potency? I already have LM3, and it feels better when I hold it than the LM2 does, so maybe I just need something stronger. Is there a way to become more certain of what to do?

It has been about 3 weeks since I took the LM3. It was really horrific this time, I felt like I was losing my mind. It is probably not finished working, but I think I would be reluctant to take it again in any case, unless you feel very strongly that it is still what is needed.

My troubles seem to have been triggered by a video game I was playing, which was causing me to have time confusion, identity confusion, and a sense of unreality in my real life when I wasn't playing it. I don't think it was just the game by itself, it seems like it was an aggravation from the remedy which made me more susceptible because I still felt weird a week after I had quit playing the game. One day I woke up with a nightmarish sense that life was a game and I couldn't remember if it had ever been different.

I'm ok now, I think, but I also feel like I'm still back where I started, like I still have the same problems I've always had. I said the last time that what that counselor said to me in the interview wasn't a big deal, but I think it really was, because now I have that in my mind whenever I'm talking to anyone and I assume they're thinking the same thing.

I feel like people are troubled by me, like they're more afraid of me than I am of them, and I don't know why, because I'm a very quiet and gentle person, and I'm not ugly or scary-looking or anything. After the counselor told me that she thought I was too weird to get a job, she said that she didn't think I should work with the public. That means she thinks I should be hidden away somewhere. It's really offensive. I don't know what people are seeing when they look at me, I can't even imagine.

My dreams lately involve things like being snubbed by neighbors, which is actually happening, because a while back on my Facebook page I said something about someone which was true, I just blurted out that so-and-so did such-and-such-thing, a terrible thing that they shouldn't have gotten away with, and about 5 people unfriended me over that, even though all I was doing was telling the truth, and he's the one who did it.

Basically I feel like I've been pushed out of the tribe. I mean just in general, all my life, and they say it's my fault but I never had a choice. On the one hand I don't like it, but on the other hand the way the tribe has acted towards me makes me not like them much anyway, so I have mixed feelings. But they have the power of consensus so they always win.

I know none of this makes any sense but that's part of the problem: Life doesn't make any sense.

Here's my current state: I have a dull headache which moves around but is mostly on the right side and partly in my sinuses. My teeth are all hurting a little so I don't like to eat much, and I don't have much of an appetite anyway, I usually just want something sweet and light like ice cream or fruit. My skin feels dry but not itchy or scaly; my hands make a papery sound when I rub them together. I think I'm salivating a lot but I don't know how much is normal. I have a colorless vaginal discharge which smells a little like ammonia and a little like rancid grease. I feel kind of chilled sometimes, and on the few days when the weather wasn't hot I woke up shivering and with my teeth chattering. It is hard to talk, like I don't have full access to my voice, like it's locked away somewhere. Sometimes it is hard to think, especially if there is a lot of noise around me, it's like my brain gets paralyzed. Or everything seems indistinct, I can't formulate my thoughts because it isn't anything, it's more a lack of something.

I don't know, I'm sorry, it's a lot of information and they're all starting to sound alike. Like, that sounds a lot like Natrum Carbonicum. It seems to kind of fit but I didn't get like a strong intuitive sense of recognition or anything, and I don't really connect with any of the likes or dislikes. Plus I actually like talking about myself, and I don't sweat much. So I don't know.

I guess my new insight from the last round of Germanium is that I don't really want to hide, I want to shine. I think that's what I was getting at when I complained about the counselor saying I shouldn't work with the public. I don't think my differentness is all bad, and I don't think I'm meant to fit in. I've been focusing on the negative on here, but I've gotten positive attention too, and I really liked it, and it feels a lot more healthy and natural than either being ostracized or disappearing into obscurity. I've often thought that if I could become successful in some artistic field then it would solve all my problems, because artists are expected to be eccentric, so people would cut me more slack. I do have inherent talent but I've generally been too inhibited to do much with it, which I guess is fear of exposure.

I'm going to try to find more stuff to read about that remedy, to see if I can get more of a feel for it.

I don't know how relevant it is, but the sense of chilliness has worn off and I'm back to my usual state of feeling better in cool and damp weather. Some other things that differ from that remedy are that I feel better in the open air and during thunderstorms and after taking stimulants. My best time of day is in the evening, from about 5 to 10.

As for cultivating a social persona, I don't do that at all, I couldn't if I tried, that's partly what gets me in trouble. I have a block against putting on the mask, but then since I don't have a mask I feel naked and vulnerable and I clam up. Actually underneath the shyness I think I have a desire to just be blunt and honest and open. One thing that I know for sure is that people are NOT going to think worse of me if they know me, because it would not be possible for people to think worse of me than they do, based on the imaginary stuff that they project onto me, which is always much worse than the reality. The problem comes from being misunderstood, from people assuming false things. I have given up on trying to control what people think, I'm not protecting myself from judgement by being quiet, I'm making it worse, but it's more like I'm shy to talk to people BECAUSE I think that they already think I'm weird, so I feel self-conscious and awkward, like I'm putting myself on display. I don't want to give a flawless performance. What I really want is to be listened TO instead of gawked AT.

If you think I should take that remedy then I will take it.

Lycopodium, thanks for the morale boost. It really does help, and also those are good suggestions.

Sameer, the Lac Caninum sounds very good. I'm planning to take it in the next few days.

I haven't taken it yet because I'm not feeling well, and I don't know whether it's still connected to the other remedy. My head is hurting in a different way than usual, kind of a raw feeling like my brain has been scraped across pavement, I will sleep as much of the day as I can get away with, I'm itching all over and I get a rash which is like little bumps that are the same color as my skin, and I sneeze a lot. I was thinking maybe it's an allergy but I don't know to what. I've been waiting to see if it passes. If it doesn't in a few days I will need to know what to do.

Yes, editing or proofreading is something I've specifically thought about it, and I would love to do it, but the listings I've seen seem to all require a college degree, which I don't have. So there is also the matter of lacking credentials.

Nothing to report yet on the remedy.

I took the Lac Caninum a few weeks ago. I think there is still something else, because the primary symptoms remain unchanged: Can't look at people, can't say people's names, difficulty speaking. It's possible that there is some improvement in my mental state which is unrelated to those symptoms, which would follow the pattern of the last few remedies I have taken.

I have a very bad headache even now as I am writing this so it's hard to express myself clearly but I'm in a mood where I want to be taking some step in the direction of cure so I'll do the best I can.

It has been moving in a certain direction with the last few remedies. Rather than judging it good or bad, I'll just describe it the best I can: My confidence and self-esteem are better. I don't feel as much shame about my condition. I am more comfortable with the condition, but the condition has not changed. I find that I am stubbornly clinging to traits that I thought I wanted to get rid of. I do not want to look into people's eyes, so I don't even try anymore. I think it's because I'm reluctant to do anything for the purpose of pleasing other people. It would have to come from some genuine, spontaneous place within. I think I spent a lot of years trying unsuccessfully to please people and I got burned out on it. When I do anything just for that purpose, I feel like I'm losing my center. Also I think I'm trying to preserve a sense of inner calm by not letting anybody in.

Aside from the social problems, I'm also very lazy. It is the same process: It used to be I was just disorganized, and I worked very hard to try to become organized (so that my husband would stop yelling at me) but it never worked, and now I just want to take it easy, and stop jumping whenever anyone tells me to. Again, it would have to come from within.

The original problem remains. I think I believe in the layers approach, based on my own experience, because I think all the low self-esteem and fear of judgment and things like that were added on to the original problem as a result of it. I think it's something more fundamental. It feels like a reflex. I've had it all my life, and if there was an event that caused it then it happened when I was too young to remember.

I think it will be a mineral remedy.

It's like there is a wall I always come to, a specific place I know I need to push through, but there's a magnetic repulsion that forces me to turn away.

I think it's important for me to be very clear and precise in what I say from this point on, so I'll think about it and come back.

Sameer, it has been a few weeks, I don't remember the exact date, it never occurs to me to write it down or anything. My previous post before the last one, when I said 'Nothing to report yet,' was when the aggravation was starting to fade, so that might have been about 2 weeks after taking it.

During the aggravation I cried a lot and had various physical pain. Now that it has passed I'm not noticing much but that doesn't mean nothing is happening. It could be that old patterns are disappearing so quietly that I'm forgetting about them. I think maybe I'm more relaxed, but I don't notice it until I think about it.

I still feel more inhibited than I would like to. For example, sometimes I want to sing, but I don't dare do it. When I hear other people singing in public I feel embarrassed for them, but also envious, because I wish I could be free like that.

Actually I'm not that impressed with it so far. Or maybe I'm still aggravating from it, but it has been over a month. I feel sore all over and very withdrawn and all I want to do is sleep. It has not helped me to open up socially, even as much as some of the other things have. The Germanium didn't help with that either.

The Medorrhinum and Carcinosin helped the most. But they went at it from different directions, and both seemed incomplete.

The Medorrhinum made me feel less inhibited in my behaviors. In the sense that, before I took it, I couldn't even move freely in the presence of other people, and my voice wouldn't flow in a natural way. I liked it more than I probably let on to, and I wonder whether I could benefit from more. But it seemed to stop when it came to having to speak directly to another person, which is different somehow. So I got impatient and wanted to try other things in the hope that something would help more specifically with that.

The Carcinosin made me feel more connected to other people, but in a way that was independent of actually having anything to say. Like I could just sit silently with people and feel more like I was 'with' them. Or I could still feel the connection with people even when they weren't physically present with me. So I guess it's like being connected in the spirit realm or something. It remains my favorite remedy that I've taken so far. It was wonderful. But I'm still more comfortable keeping it ONLY on that level, instead of interacting directly.

The Baryta Carb seemed to give hope in the beginning, with the 30c, but then the 200c didn't seem like it did anything at all.

There is something about direct face-to-face interaction with people which seems very threatening. But I don't understand it myself, so I can't explain it. I don't know what it is I'm afraid of. Something in the contact itself. It's almost like I'm afraid that the direct contact will hurt, the way it hurts when an exposed nerve is touched. But I know that's not the whole story either.

But there is also the matter of not knowing how to get there in the first place because I feel like I'm on a different wavelength from other people, and I don't even know what to say to them. The things that people talk about, such as sports or politics or popular culture, I don't even follow those things, so I'm lost. I think I've mentioned before, it seems like other people have some kind of natural understanding between them, and I'm out of the loop.

There is more, but I don't know how to communicate it.

Yeah, I can't really tell any difference since taking this remedy.
Today when I went to the store I noticed that the security guard was following me. It happens to me a lot. Even recently, I've had them actually follow me out of the store and accuse me of stealing. But I don't steal. There is always the standard excuse that anyone in their position would have been suspicious of me. That is obviously faulty reasoning since they have the wrong person, therefore the premise must be wrong and their self-righteousness has no basis, so I just play along as if they have as much of a right to do what they're doing as they seem to think they do. I didn't even have a purse or a bag with me today, I just had my wallet in my pocket, so it's absurd to think that I went in there to steal stuff, there are very few groceries that would fit inconspicuously in my pocket. This isn't a delusion because it's really going on. I don't stand out visually, I dress modestly and boringly, I don't have a counterculture look. And I'm quiet and unobtrusive. And yet they insist that it's a given that ANYBODY in their position would feel perfectly justified in singling me out like that.

Since that stuff is still happening, and I'm still not standing up for myself, I don't think I can really say that any of the remedies have been successful.

(Sorry for venting, but it helps sometimes.)

Ok. Thank you for staying with this for so long. Is there anything else you need to know that might help?

Sameer, I was wondering whether you've considered Beryllium or one of its compounds?

Here is the main thing I found about it:
http://homeoresearch.blogspot.com/2010/08/beryllium-beryl_30...