# Help and Advice > Friend/relative has depression support >  Dr says Social Anxiety

## lynyona

Hi 
My son who is 29 is currently on the sick the Dr says its Social anxiety but the symptoms fit more for depression. When Jamie was a senior school he was bullied by his so called best friends he has low self esteem any of the relationships he has had he as met online and they have all turned out terrible and messed with his head and he s always attracted to people with baggage or problems which they unload onto him. He is on sertraline he has trouble sleeping some days he doesn't leave his room or even get dressed his personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. earlier this year I was really worried about him he was posting all these things on Facebook about how the world would be better off without him and he s done with this world and he would just go off. One of his friends who ironic enough was one of the lads who use to bully him even came around to see me to see if d seen what he had been posting and they were really concerned one night got really bad one of his friends was telling him he needed to go to the hospital he was that low and wanted to end it all he ended up ringing our local mental health crisis team at 2 in the morning he felt better after he spoke to them. He is under open minds. He is broken and I don't know how to mend him. he got a job last week to start Wednesday which I was a bit dubious he went to the induction Tuesday he was fine or so I though I got a message from him saying that he couldn't start work his head wasn't in the right place. He left his last job through the same reason he couldn't pretend he was happy and smiley when he wasn't and they picked on him a bit as well an all women environment .I sometime feel guilty that it may be my fault that he is like he is I have a older son who is Autistic he s 31 now and when Jamie was younger I feel he didn't get the attention he should because of my other son took all my energy and time up even though he wasn't diagnosed till he was 18 but he was statemented as special needs and since his diagnosis his childhood now makes sense to me.my son doesn't have friends because he doesn't socialise and even my other sons will say to me he wants to sort his self out and get a grip and snap out of it .They don't know what's going on in his head . He had his Atos Assessment yesterday and he s been here before they said he was fit for work but he s no better now than he was then. If they throw him off he will have to go find work which I know he cant mentally do. How can I help him? He wants to get out there but he just cant .I'm just pleased because of his financial situation he lives at home with us

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## Suzi

Oh sweetheart welcome to DWD. Your concern and love for your boys screams through in your post. Have you got any support for you? Is there anyway you can go with him or get in contact with his Dr and tell them your concerns?

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## Paula

Hi Hunni and welcome. Is your son planning on appealing the decision re the assessment? Its a tough process but if he cant work, a necessary one. 

Social anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. How long has he been taking sertraline? When did he last see his doctor for a review? Lovely, youre already helping him by being there for him. But it can be hard caring for someone so please make sure you take time out for you.

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## OldMike

Social anxiety and depression often occur together and one feeds off the other, I'm on Sertraline and it helps me but we are all different maybe another anti-depressant would suit him better, has he had a meds review with his doctor. There's various talking therapies has he explored those?

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## Jarre

Welcome lynyona to the forum. I echo the ladies and Mikes comments, however I am going to add another element to this.  As someone who lived in a boarding school and was builled through his whole school life, college and univeristy I get alot of his symptoms.  Having this happen at childhood sticks with you as your grow into an adult it melds how you are around people how you analyse new persons you come into contact with and you are always threat assessing everything around you. You help others because you don't want anyone to suffer the stuff you got and every time a person you help shuns you and pushes you away the deeper you go into your shell.  The fact that you stay there is because the length of time you were bullied becomes a trauma that circulates around your brain at all times staying at the front.  Normally when you sleep your brain files the days activites but traumatic events and constant events stay in the foreground weighing heavy on your mind. Your bodys natural filing system REM sleep does not touch these items.  There are several options open depending on the policies of the local mental health teams. The is the talking therapies where the therapist looks at helping deal with the anxiety or how I call it my threat radar to try and make doing normal activites, work etc (I do work full time even though I suffer still at times so beleive me when i say there is still hope) there are trauma therapies like emdr (eye movment desensitization and reprocessing) which is basically trying to mimic the REM sleep you get to try through targeting head first into the issues and turning them on the head to enable it to be filed. I have done EMRDR therapy which helped a little enabling me to go back to work and have a reasonably constant life, its not perfect and is fully of bumps and divots but I am able to deal with the bumps and divots a bit easier. Trust is the hardest thing to gain for him as he will threat detect each person and we do gt sucked into helping the vunerable and don't always see the signs of someone taking advantage till its to late and as I said before it pushes one into their shell further. This is another thing a therapist will need to tackle to analyse certain events to make you see how that person "used" you and anylising the friendship to see where that point started to happen and try andlearn to spot it earlier on.  Its not easy, you wil still find it happens again but you do become more cautious, the balance is the hardest thing to achieve.  Alot of the problems I have today socially are due to the past so being able to come to terms with the past and file it will start to make a positive inpact on the future.  Its not an easy thing and their will be times when he will think its pointless or he may get worse before he gets better the key thing he will need from you is the support and the "well get through this" and being honest.

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magie06 (26-05-18),Suzi (26-05-18)

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## lynyona

> Hi Hunni and welcome. Is your son planning on appealing the decision re the assessment? ItÂs a tough process but if he canÂt work, a necessary one. 
> 
> Social anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. How long has he been taking sertraline? When did he last see his doctor for a review? Lovely, youÂre already helping him by being there for him. But it can be hard caring for someone so please make sure you take time out for you.


Hi 
He hasn't had a decision yet this time round but he didn't appeal last time he said they'd made their mind up so no point . He s been on Sertaline a while  now he see s the Dr regularly when he as to renew his sick note ,the drs been really good he listened when none of the others did he was on Citraoplam but he put loads of weight on with it so he came off that and had sleeping tablets but they made him feel ill




> Social anxiety and depression often occur together and one feeds off the other, I'm on Sertraline and it helps me but we are all different maybe another anti-depressant would suit him better, has he had a meds review with his doctor. There's various talking therapies has he explored those?


Hi
 when he goes to open minds he does something like that and cognitive exercises etc listens to the calming cds which don't help

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## Suzi

Things like meditation and relaxation only work if you put in the practise and are able to let yourself go a bit..  Is there any chance you could go with him to one of his appointments and tell his Dr how concerned you are about him?

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## lynyona

> Things like meditation and relaxation only work if you put in the practise and are able to let yourself go a bit..  Is there any chance you could go with him to one of his appointments and tell his Dr how concerned you are about him?


I did ask him and he said he s an adult now he ll deal with it himself maybe he doesn't want me to hear what he as to say

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## Suzi

Maybe that's it... 
Do you have any support for you?

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## Paula

> Hi 
> He hasn't had a decision yet this time round but he didn't appeal last time he said they'd made their mind up so no point


Appeals can be won. Ive won a PiP appeal so have been there. Thing is, a tribunal is made up of an independent body so its irrelevant if DWP made up their mind as theyre not the body who will be making the decision at tribunal.

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## lynyona

> Appeals can be won. Ive won a PiP appeal so have been there. Thing is, a tribunal is made up of an independent body so its irrelevant if DWP made up their mind as theyre not the body who will be making the decision at tribunal.



will definitely appeal this time he just not in right mind set to work

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## Suzi

I've done appeals for my husband both for ESA and PIP and won both. It's very, very worth trying. It's quite usual to be turned down, then to be refused at the mandatory reconsideration stage then the appeal which drags on for a long time has a much higher percentage of winning...

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