I have many similar child, teen & adult life experiences as you. My father was an abusive alcoholic & control freak most of my life & now except for the alcoholism, still manages to abuse my mother, my 2 brothers, my 2 children & myself in one way or another. We were constantly moving & put in several different schools every year & I assume my social phobia was brought on by that very thing. I remember being completely embarrassed each time I was introduced by a new teacher to my new fellow classmates. I always turned red & therefore was laughed at by everyone. I would constantly pretend to be sick or hurt to either be sent to the office, nurse's station or home to avoid being either teased or so that no one would be able to see me cry. I would also pretend to be sick at home so that I could try & avoid being sent to what I viewed as being the new freak of the school. We never ever had any money for new clothes, a new car, half decent furniture or a decent home to be able to invite friends to. I was not an ugly child at all, I was fairly pretty, blonde, friendly & kind. None of that seemed to matter though to most of my classmates. It seemed that all they saw was some new kid that was too shy to talk, always on the verge of tears, a teacher's pet because of excellent grades & the worst of all, POOR!!!! No one really could argue with me that this is obviously where my social phobia came from & obviously I have never overcome it. I am now 40yrs old with 2 children & I still turn beet red at just having to meet one of their teachers. I have also been able to fool alot of people my whole life so that they have no clue about my problem. I have many different stories that I come up with to cover up my red face. I might say that I have suddenly become dizzy, or I am having a hot flash, or a sudden extremely painful spot on my body. I manage to fool everyone while I calm myself down & return my face to a normal colour. Anyways, there are many other examples that I would love to share with someone that has either gone through, is going through or was able to conquer this horrific problem. PLEASE, if you can share something with me to help me or would even like to try & figure out a way we could both fix this thing that holds us back from being who we really are or woul

Hello. Many of you know me already. I came back to the site after being away for a while. My story is that of a sensitive child growing up with an extremely feeling and introverted alcoholic father and an extremely thinking extroverted mother who became religious after my father tried to kill himself, when I was about 4 or 5 years old. My father and I were similar in personality in many ways, but I became more religious than my mother, and I think that is what saved my life. So I grew up in an extremely mixed up family. On the one hand, we children suffered the rantings and ravings of an alcoholic father, and on the other hand we were trained to live a highly moral life. So although some of my siblings experienced sexual abuse and I experienced inapropriate sexual experiences at the hand of our father and grandfather; at the same time we were exposed to a very high standard of moral behavior from my mother; at least on outward appearance, if not in total honesty. In reality, my mother's behaviour was far from perfect. She had only married my father to have a father for my older sister, who was from another man. Before she died, she also admitted to having had two children before she was married, one she had put up for adoption, and the second, she had hired a nanny to hide my sister away. When she found out my sister was being treated badly, she despirately tried to marry someone so she could take my sister back, without causing a scandal (in those days). I understand she lied her way into various peoples lives in order to do that, some of who backed away from her when she told them the truth, and eventually found a caring person who had also been adopted by a stepmother, and so could not change his mind about the wedding, when it finally came down to it. I guess he realised that my mother did not really love him, but he married her anyway. In her own words, she realised she had made a mistake on the wedding night, when my father was completely drunk. Repeatedly thereafter, she tried to leave him and us with him, at various stages of our lives, but always came back for religious reasons. She felt it would be wrong to divorce, but I think she would have had grounds for it anyway, and I wished she had protected us more by at least separat