What is the link between social anxiety OCD and depression as well as generalised anxiety disorder is there anyone out there who has this complicated illness and what treatment have they received?

Answer 1

I am not a medical professional, nor have I done research on this question, but I am a person who has been diagnosed with each of these things. First off, I think that it is a result of brain chemistry, even the "social anxiety" (that sounds as if it's behavioral.) The reason I say this is that both my father and his mother have the same diagnoses. Hopefully the chemical imbalance will lessen as the generations continue, because my grandmother is much worse than my father, and my father is much worse than me--but maybe the symptoms just get worse as we age! I don't know. What I do know is that my grandmother takes a steady dose of a number of drugs, but the most relevant on to this discussion is Lorazopan. I have taken Lorazopn on an as needed basis, and it acted like a tranquilizer if I was having an anxiety attack. But my grandmother takes it as part of a daily regime, as does my father (at a lighter dose.) I don't think it would be possible to work while taking Lorazopan on a daily basis, but I could be wrong. My grandmother mostly sits around all day reading when she is not walking in circles, and she has a lot of hallucinations, but that is probably a different story.

My father has spent some time in a hospital for treatment of his OCD. One of his triggers is being obsessed with things on the ground, worrying that people may slip and fall. So, part of his treatment therapy )cognitive behavioral therapy) was to sprinkle flour on the floor of a hallway, spritz water over it, and watch people walk down the hallway without saying anything to them. Another patient there who was worried about passing germs to other people through hand-shaking had to rub his hands on the bottom of his shoe and then go shake hands with people. I think these methods are interesting, but also messed up! My father had some short term alleviation of anxiety reactions related to his OCD, but I don't think it fixed the mental reaction, just the way he behaved himself (which I guess is the point--but this didn t help HIS mental problems, it only led him to act in more acceptable ways for the rest of society.) It is now a few years since his hospitalization, and my father has had to quit his job and retire early because of his anxiety and OCD.

I'm finished writing for now--hopefully I can return to this post and finish writing about my experience with the lovely OCD, depression and social anxiety combo. Until then, I suggest finding a very thorough and specialized psychiatrist if you experience these disorders. Also, I think that taking psychiatric drugs should be paired with counseling/therapy. While we may have chemical imbalances, our brains are very powerful and can (sometimes) be manipulated (in good ways) to alter thought patterns, etc.

----New Answer----

Heres my answer. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder causes you to constantly worry/think about your social anxiety. You can't get it of your mind, and so you become afraid of social anxiety itself, or of the anxiety attacks it gives you, which therefore actually causes you to have that social anxiety attack. This would then lead to depression, because of the inability to overcome the social anxiety. It seems Obsessive Compulsive Disorder may be what actually triggers social anxiety disorder.