Hello @Magic Max, please seek professional help. Is there a psychotherapist near you that you can consult?

Recommendations:

Psychotherapy – ideally cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
You don't "just" need medication, but help with the thought and behavior patterns that perpetuate your anxiety.

Differential diagnosis by a specialist
A thorough psychological or psychiatric examination could help clarify exactly which disorders are present and whether, for example, you also have social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or depressive symptoms.

Trauma management?
Have you possibly had negative experiences in the past that exacerbate your social anxiety? This should also be investigated.

Addiction counseling (if relevant)
If alcohol is truly being used for self-medication, this is a risk factor for worsening – this should be addressed in therapy.

Spoiler: Source: ChatGPT KI

First, thank you for being so open. What you wrote isn’t just clear, it’s incredibly relatable for many people who live with chronic anxiety — especially when it's not just fear, but a whole network of social, sensory, emotional, and logistical stressors that stack on top of each other. You're not “overreacting.” You’re describing the intricate calculus of living in a body and brain that’s always doing too much to keep you “safe.”

Let’s unpack a few pieces. No advice yet. Just recognition.

The Loop of Overthinking
You’re describing something a lot of people with GAD experience: scenario stacking. It’s not just “what if someone visits,” but:

• What to serve.
  
  
• Whether they’ll like it.
  
  
• Whether they’ll judge you.
  
  
• What if you want them to leave.
  
  
• What if they don’t want to leave.
  
  
• What if you go there and regret it.
  
  
• What if the coffee sucks.
  
  
• What if the music sucks.
  

Each layer adds pressure, until it becomes easier to just avoid the whole damn thing. But then the loneliness or self-judgment creeps in, too.

This isn’t neurotic. This is your nervous system running a high-alert simulation 24/7. It is exhausting, and I see why you'd want either medication or alcohol to help take the edge off. That’s survival, not weakness.

Why Music and Socializing Feel So Risky
Music isn’t neutral to you. It’s personal, vulnerable — even confrontational, especially when you're around others who create music or want to share it. There’s often an unspoken pressure to perform emotions around music: “Do I like this enough?” “Am I reacting the right way?” “Will I be judged for my taste?”

Now layer that with the social expectations, small talk, physical space, and body tension of being a guest or host — it’s not surprising that you’d rather avoid the whole encounter.

You are not broken for feeling this way. You are navigating social situations with a hypersensitive barometer — one that’s been trained over decades to detect all the ways something might go wrong. It's the "comedy of errors" you mentioned — except it feels more like tragedy in the moment.

‍♂️ The Isolation: Safe, But Stifling
Staying home feels safe — but also lonely, limiting, even soul-draining. It becomes a cycle:

• Avoidance brings short-term relief.
  
  
• Long-term, it adds to the sense that you’re “not normal” or that you’re “failing” at life.
  
  
• That fuels the anxiety further.
  This is the trap of agoraphobia-like behaviors, even if it’s not full-blown agoraphobia. It’s not cowardice. It’s a very understandable form of self-preservation — but one that can become a cage.
  

Now, What Can Be Done? (Gently. Slowly.)
I won’t offer you the usual “have you tried mindfulness” platitudes. You’re not new to this. 26 years medicated — you’ve been in the trenches.

Instead, let’s consider just one step: reduce the number of simulations. When the mind tries to solve every hypothetical, it drowns. What if we shrink the horizon?

Microstep: Choose One “Safe Person”
Pick someone who is less likely to trigger all the scenarios. Someone:

• Who doesn’t stay too long.
  
  
• Who brings their own food or doesn’t care about food.
  
  
• Who also finds socializing awkward.
  

Have a brief, clearly timed interaction with that person — even if it’s 20 minutes at your house. No milk. No cookies. Say, “I’m trying short visits. You okay with coffee, no frills?”

Try it like an experiment, not a performance. No need to “enjoy” it. Just log the data: “I did it. This is what happened.”

Would you be open to me helping you create a sort of personal playbook? One that:

• Includes scripts for declining invitations guilt-free.
  
  
• Outlines how to host with zero pressure.
  
  
• Helps you spot when you're about to spiral into scenario stacking.
  

You don’t have to change everything. But you don’t need to keep carrying all of it alone either.

 

Last edited: Jun 12, 2025 at 12:56 PM