Drunk from Anxiety

If I ever talk in depth to someone about the anxiety I have experienced, I usually tell them about the three 'strands' of anxiety that I have dealt with over the years.  One is health anxiety, one is panic disorder and the other is social anxiety.  The latter is something I have blogged about before, from a lack of confidence with other people point of view, but there is another element that, for me, also heightens anxiety in social situations.

I don't do this too often...

Much of it is around peer pressure when it comes to alcohol.  People I know and, perhaps to stereotype, most people between mid-teens and mid-thirties today, seem to be in the mindset of 'if you don't drink when you go out, you're not having a good time' or 'you're no fun.'  Drinking is apparently the thing that makes the night out good or otherwise, whereas in my experience it's often the opposite.  

If I drink too much alcohol in one night (which I never do these days), then it has been known to cause some adverse effects on my heart rate, i.e. increase it significantly.  My usual pattern of a drunken night was:

Go to bed and fall asleep quickly at say 1am > wake up at 5am with my heart pounding really fast and nearly have a panic attack > get over this by about 7am, then fall asleep briefly again and wake up feeling horrific.

This would happen after only say three pints - I was barely drunk really, and didn't get a hangover.  It was just the effect alcohol had on me and no-one else I know has ever experienced this thing with the heart rate.  If I had even more drink than this, to the point where a hangover also set in, then the same thing would happen but I'd also be hungover in the morning, which then of course had an additional effect - triggering my health anxiety. 

It was all this that stopped me from drinking too much on a night out.  The slightly good feeling you experience when having had a few drinks wasn't worth the hours of hell I went through afterwards, which to me seems perfectly reasonable.  Of course, explaining this to someone isn't something I have done much of (it's not exactly a conversation to bring up when out drinking), meaning that I can't use this as an excuse as to why I may not be drinking much when I go out.  Many people who I've been out with several times over the past few years have kind of just accepted that I don't drink much, compared to most people.

But as I said earlier, getting drunk is compulsory for most people when they go out... if they aren't drunk, the night is crap.  In reality, if for some reason they aren't drunk, they almost automatically refuse to believe that a night can be a good one, and hence turn miserable for the rest of the night.  Because of this strange mentality that young middle-class citizens have developed (in my experience - I emphasise, I'm sure it's not like this everywhere), it then means that if their friends aren't equally as drunk as them, they are not having a good night, or they are making their night miserable because they aren't getting drunk with them.  It's crackers.

Some of the best nights out I've had have been ones where I've been stone cold sober.  I actually enjoy clubbing to an extent, mainly for the music rather than the overcrowding or state of other people around me (yes, usually from alcohol), but I love music and the euphoria I find it can bring. One night I was out in Birmingham with a couple of friends seeing some DJs that I particularly liked.  The drinks were really expensive (£5 for a bottle of lager for e.g.) and the place was so packed that getting to the bar was a task, let alone waiting for the barman to serve you.  So much so that we didn't bother and having only had a beer with a meal beforehand, I was totally sober.  And yet, because the music was great and the atmosphere was electric, it was a great night in good company and frankly alcohol may have only clouded this.  That's before the inevitable health impacts that would have subsequently set in.  

But social anxiety comes when people start badgering you to drink; in some cases, buying you drinks when you have been adamant that you don't want one.  You feel pressure initially and this intensifies if, as I do now, you stand your ground.  People start making comments about you not drinking and this makes you feel like you're a burden to the night out.  This, of course, is particularly prevalent when everyone you're with is getting increasingly rat-arsed, and the problem with being the sole sober person is you can't have a coherent conversation with anyone.  You're aware of things, no-one else is.  You're aware that people, by and large, turn into idiots when they are drunk, people you don't want to be around, and people that in their drunken state you'd only appreciate... if you too were drunk.  

So your night becomes miserable and you feel lonely and boring.  It's not good and gives you a complex.  This is where, of course, it begins to fuel the low confidence feelings too, that I experience in most social situations anyway, regardless of the presence of alcohol.  It's a downward spiral from there.

I'm pleased to say that some of my closest friends are like me in that they don't need alcohol to enjoy themselves.  Most of them drink, some of them get drunk, but they don't feel that a night is a hopeless one if they haven't.  It's merely a laugh and a comment the morning after - 'haha, you were pissed last night.'  This I don't mind, and I can appreciate the benefits of being drunk.  If I'm being blunt, I'd probably drink more if I didn't have to face the health implications a few hours later everytime I went over my rather low threshold.  

It's unlikely society will change.  More and more pressure is being heaped on young people from a social perspective from the social media phenomenon and drinking isn't likely to decline anytime soon.  The whole world of modern social behaviour is not good for someone with social anxiety and sadly, in my opinion, I don't think it's likely to get any better in the future.

Best wishes
Al

Ooh, tetchy

One flaw of my anxiety condition over the years has been the inability to deal with criticism.  This is understandable, and obtaining criticism is something that can easily cause anxiety if you don't take it well.  If I ever get criticism for something, usually work related, I often turn moody with the individual who has given me the criticism.  I'm probably worse if I know they're right because then I also feel like a failure, which is the ultimate in self-esteem crushing.

Slightly OTT but you get the idea

What I feel legitimately annoyed about, though, is when people comment on certain aspects of my life.  For example, I'm not the world's best cook (neither are any of my family before me - it's rare that the oven or microwave isn't used to cook at least part of a meal) so I keep it simple.  I vary my diet but I can't make dishes that some people themselves would call 'simple.'  Anything that involves ingredients causes me real problems.

So like I say, I keep it simple.  When people, over time, notice this (I'm obviously referring to people I live with because who else would necessarily know?!) and then make comments such as:

"I assume you need the oven" or
"Are you having that again?"

... it annoys me.  Why does it annoy me?  Especially when such comments are usually in jest and I can give it back just as much.  Well, I put this down to a chronically low self-esteem; I effectively take such comments as criticism, which is the first problem.  It isn't really criticism, and even if it was, why should I care?  Why does it bother me so much that someone has pointed out what I eat?  

The underlying answer is I HATE it when people psycho-analyse me (if this is the right phrase).  I hate it when people think they know me when they comment on these sort of things.  There are other examples too, I don't want you to think food is the only thing, for a fear of clouding the food issue with another food issue I've had in the past.  It could be anything that people observe about me.  Another example could be if I talk about something quite often, or do something often, like watch football.  I love watching football, again as a result of my family, but then people make comments as though me watching football is me wasting my life.  

Now it could be that people's observations are sometimes true.  I could do more with my life than spend all daytime weekends watching football.  I could try to cook more adventurous things.  But even if they do have a point, I let it bother me that they a) think they have a right to point it out when I could easily make likewise comments to them about some of their traits and b) that they should care about what I do when it doesn't affect them.  I know, it sounds petty and tetchy, I can hear it.

So why does this bother me so much?  Like I alluded to earlier, low self-esteem is one thing.  In most situations (especially socially), I have horrendous self-esteem issues and often find it difficult to make myself feel good about myself in front of others. I think people making what seem like derogatory comments about my life, even if they're not derogatory, just emphasises this self-esteem and further damages confidence.  This then fuels anxiety and makes me feel worse about myself, and so the spiral continues.  

As with many things, including the chicken and egg, which caused what?  Did the anxiety cause the self-esteem issues or did the self-esteem cause much of my anxiety?  Hard to say and as also with many things, I think it's a bit of both.  As a result I just hate psychoanalysis, and it makes me feel like things I do are odd, even though everyone has bizarre traits.  It's just that most people can take it when they are told about it.

Just another aspect of how anxiety has contributed towards element of my personality.

Best wishes
Al