lowestpair

In your subject line you use the words "trying to save myself" which has a kind of desperate tone to it; if I'm wrong then that's great, but if I'm right I urge you to find a counselor and explore what is bothering you. A proffesional can help you gain more insight into what is really going on. No disrespect to the other posters but I am not sure that just moving out with a few strangers is the answere. First of all, you don't need to move in with strangers to gain independance. Where do your friends live? You could move in with a friend and still experience the growth you're talking about, and feel a little more at ease because you have someone close, or at least closer than a total stranger to be around and to get support from. One of the greatest assets to help a person get through something like this is a support net. I can't stress this enough, without a support net and with social anxiety you are totally alone. I know this from experience, I never got close to my friends and the next thing I knew I didn't have any, and strangers won't help. Cultivate your relationships with your friends. Your friends are your connection to the outside world. This is the most important thing to have in trying to work through social anxiety. If you lose this connection (your friends) then overcoming social anxiety becomes even that much more difficult. Moving out can be a good thing, but it doesn't have to be with a stranger. Remember friends are the socially anxious persons connection to the social world. I hope this was helpfull and good luck.

I was reading about narcicissm on here and a lot of it, at least what I understood, really hit home. I have been alone for several years now and I now don't have any friends. I have never been married and I don't have any children and time has pulled the rug out from under me. I have been going to therapy for a few years now but nothing is working. My therapist has got me to return to school. I guess that is a positive step. I desperately want friends and I desperately want a relationship, but avoid everything that I need to do to find these things. I have to go to an oreintation next week for the pragram that I will enter next fall for school and I am terrified. I got a letter from them yesterday informing me that later there will also be a cook out for all the students in this program to get to know one another . I am so afraid of it that I thought to myself that I hope I have to work, then I thought I'll just say I have to work even if I don't. This is my dilema, I so want and need friends and a companion, but can't do what is necessary to get them. I think that I am aging prematurely because of my lack of human contact. This post is going to be way too long, sorry about that. Back to the subject of nrcicissm, I've known for a long time that I have low self-esteem, but only recently learned that low self-esteem and arrogance are not mutually exclusive. I never imagined that I could be arrogant since I was so shy and thought so little of myself, but it would seem that I am. I don't know what I'm asking for, I just needed to talk to someone besides my therapist.