Hi,

Had to get this off my chest and I really don't have anyone else to talk to about it.

I am a 30 year old male and the last 2 years have been the most miserable of my life.
I met a girl who lived in a different part of the country & I moved to be with her. Things were fantastic!! I got a great job, made some new friends & life was pretty good.

When I was out with my new group of friends, I started to feel paranoid & get panic attacks. I was convinced they were talking about me (my appearance, my personality etc)
I confronted them a few times if I was a bit drunk & always they did their best to re-assure me. It still wasn't good enough, I still felt paranoid.
They had all been friends since childhood & had grew up together and guess I felt excluded from the group because of that and the fact that 90% of the time I was picking up the phone to make plans with them.

I have met a few of them from time to time, passed them my telephone number & heard nothing (can hardly blame them)
I very rarely talk to my friends back home now as we really have nothing much in common, and I get fed up (again) of having to instigate contact time after time.

My relationship with my girlfriend has deterioated. We have been tryin for kids fo ages without any succcess. As a result, sex doesn't happen very often now, and when I try to talk to her about my issues, I can't tell her the truth because I feel so ashamed. (She thinks I prefer staying in all the time)
My family have very active social lives, and again I would feel like a failure if I tried to explain i was a "hermit who can't make freinds anymore"

I love her with all my heart & really want to spend the rest of my life with her, but we have drifted apart 7 don't have anything in common with the exception of cuddling up in front of the TV 2/3 times a week.

I get really down going into work on a Monday mornig & making up stories about what I done over the weekend.

I guess I would find it difficult to make new friends because of my behaviour in the past & really don't fancy the mental torment thinking if "they are talking about me"

I have put on a lot of weight over the last couple of years & my self-esteem has suffered dramtically. I used to DJ every weekend, but couldn't face playing to a crowd now in-case of the paranoia.

Not really much else I can say.
As I said I had to get this off my chest and guess by posting on here to a faceless audience, I can maybe relate to someone who is going what I am going through.

I know I am feeling sorry for myself to a degree, but I just don't have any "fuel in the tank" to do anything about it.
Friends are the one thing in life I do not have & it is killing me!

Thanks for listening.

it helps to view things from different perspectives. What is really important to you?

I want to be able to have an active social life where I don't worry about what people think.
I want to get the "spark " ack with my girlfriend.

In ten years I'll be forty, I don't want to look back & feel regret.

This part is phychological. A chemical imbalance. Your doctor should prescribe you a chill pill without any problem. Don't feel bad about it. Instead feel lucky that we live in such an age where these minor chemical adjustments in the brain can be accomplished by man with the help of modern science.

"a chill pill"? What on earth does a CP contain? Are you certain this will solve all the problems of "shadowless"?

Don't know. But here is a list of some of the most popular so-called 'chill pills':
http://www.anxieties.com/med-profiles.php

Their nick-name is probably directly related to the fact that they are the anti-depressent/anxiety medications of choice by most doctors here in the U.S. of A.

Not at all. But it might help with his mood swings and anxiety attacts. And so long as he doesn't become 'chill pill' dempendent.

Hey shadowless, I can relate to what your saying, my advice would be to take a small step back and try to get better understanding of what your going through, it's never too late to change things for the better so you should definitely get a wider perspective on your situation, if you can talk to someone (maybe who is qualified to help) and catch-up on your reading, it could make a big difference. Even talking to your girlfriend mightn't be such a bad thing, it will give you the opportunity to talk through your relationship problems constructively, rather than being passive about them and hoping they go away, and I am sure she has her own problems and insecurities that opening up could quell and change for the better, but I am in no way qualified so that's just my opinion. Hope things turn out

Lot of good common senses there, Adarev.

THE PNEUMA FACTOR
What you say is: We all need to stand back, as it were, and choose to be part of the healing process of the mind and the body. It is this ability to do self-analysis--pneuma-analysis--which makes us human, or spiritual, beings and not just animal ones.

Because of my early personal and stressful experiences (much illness and death in the family), early on, as a young student, I developed an interest in finding solutions for myself and others. It seems that I was guided to do serious study in psychology, theology, and what I later called pneumatology--study of the spirit. This led me to using what I now call pneumatherapy--a spiritual form of hypnotherapy (hypnosis without the hocus pocus) similar to NLP--on myself and others.

Over the years I always began sessions in pneumatherapy--that is, using the individual spirits of people to begin and stimulate the healing process--by gathering, with the cooperation of the clients and other therapists involved, as many psychological and somatological facts as were available.

After the usual introduction I usually ask clients: Tell me
1. your personal story, who you are, and what your reasons are for consulting me;
2. who else you have consulted and the kind of help you have received;
3. about you eating habits and your physical life-style;
4. about your family history and l your personal education and reading habits.
5. Finally, I ask: How committed are you to the process of regaining your full health?

There are those who, by the action of walking away, refuse to be part of their own healing process. Some pursue other therapies, often pushed by so-called medical doctors, which are dangerous to their health. Others take their own lives, or simply give up and wait to die. For some strange reason there are some people who "enjoy" poor health and do not want to be made whole. I call this condition a pneumasomatic, or a self-inflicted and spiritually-rooted, disease. IMO, for there to be wholeness of the body and the mind, there must first be wholeness of the spirit.

I wonder what ever happened to shadowless? Did getting it off his chest solve everything? It would be interesting to know, don't you think?
Any theories, anyone.

And while I am at it: When I click on "your posts" etc., I get a blank page with "done" in the left corner? What happened to "latest posts"?

BTW, fellow posters, for the next 16 days, my wife an I will be on a vacation in sunny and warm (we hope) Florida.Treasure Island, near St. Petersburg. Today, it is sunny in Toronto, but would you believe the temperature was -32 C. That is below zero on the old F scale. For March, that is very low. They say it will warm up in the next couple of days.

Okay for starters, dont take pills, they are only a bandage on top of the wound, it wont make your problems go away, it will just make them stop bothering you for a while.

Okay, what your problem is - is lack of self confidence. Where this drop in self confidence comes from, it could be that you feel insecure from moving to a new place. Its never easy picking up and going somewhere else, so you may need to do some things to make yourself feel more at home. You are thinking about too many things consciously. Your thinking about your appearance, what people think of you, ect. This causes you to become insecure, stop worrying about what people think, its impossible to make everyone like you so just go out and have fun. If someone doesnt like you, then they will only make themselves more miserable, dont let what other people think of you control how you live your life.

Try adoping the philosophy of Hakuna ma Tatta, Whatever happens - happens.

In other words, sit back - relax and enjoy the ride thats known as life. If bad stuff happens, so what? Life isnt perfect and there will always be things that go wrong no matter what you do. How you react to things that go wrong is what will determine how your life ends up. Will you stress over every little thing or are you going to not worry about things that have happened and just enjoy life for what it is?

About your girlfriend, next time your with her, I want you to forget about any bad things that have happened between the two of you, then think of the best moment of your life with her. I want you to take that image and firmly lock it in your head, keep thinking of the best time you ever had with her. I promise you, that alone will greatly improve your relationship with her.

What you think on grows my friend, if you think of yourself as being a poor golfer then you will golf poorely, if you think of yourself as being a confident and good looking guy, then you will become more confident and better looking. This is because the sub-conscious mind does what the conscious thinks about. If you think about you and your girlfriend having a wonderful life together, then the sub-conscious mind will work to make this happen. If you think about how miserable you are, then your sub-conscious will actually try to make you more miserable.

Want proof that thinking of yourself as good looking will make you better looking? Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

(If that guy who is all about that law of attraction crap is reading this, no its not the same thing, the diffrence is this is psychophysiology, the mind causes actions in the body. The law of attraction is about using the mind to cause spiritual changes. Positive thinking and focus are things of psychology and can be used to scientifically prove changes occur. It is simply the conscious and sub-conscious working together in cohesion. Lindsay can back me up on this one, hes met Maxwell Maltz)

Hey, if we all utilized Maltz's methods we could all be successful. I'll file that with the other "road to success" ideas - in the bin. He was a businesses man pretending to be a doctor. And after the money of gullible people. Here's my method for success: get up, get working and get real!

I hope shadowless found his shadow and has a good life.

Hahaha, well I appreciate the viewpoint Hey Hey and I will think about what you said.