I have done my research and I know a lot more about social anxiety because of it. But I also learned something about the treatment of this disorder that really surprises me which is one of the reasons why I am writing this article. My purpose is also to share additional information about social anxiety, some of its effects, and to urge victims of the disorder to pursue the proper treatment for turning your lives back to normal by becoming anxiety free. Many thousands of people have done just that.

It should probably not surprise us to hear that 15 million of our citizens are experiencing anxiety disorders and that social anxiety is listed as having the third highest number of sufferers among anxiety disorders. Why should it not surprise us? Just look at some of the changes in our society, in our lifestyle: from past history of families clustering together and staying together during a lifetime, we now have separated families with parents living in one section of the country, grandparents, aunts and uncles in another and your family in yet another. Where is the sense of togetherness from the past, and the sense of security that went along with it? If we don't feel connected, we are more inclined to feel lonely and anxious. And aside from that, just struggling to keep up with all the rapid changes in our society alone is enough to cause an increase in anxiety, stress and worry, even to the point of having social anxiety disorders as we do.

If that weren't enough to disturb me, I learned about the high percentage, 90 percent, of people who were being misdiagnosed with the wrong anxiety disorder by the professions. Can you imagine thinking you were being treated and would soon get relief, but it never came because the treatment wasn't keying into the real problem? Other anxiety disorders such as manic depressive, panic attacks, or schizophrenia would require different treatments than your social anxiety calls for.

It's time now to look more closely at what happens when social anxiety takes over. For instance, you used to love being the center of attention: like when you were the head cheer leader in high school or college and all eyes were on you and you loved it; you glowed under the spotlight as you sang your solos in the community chorus group; you exuded confidence as you competed in and won your first local beauty pageant. Your future seemed so promising, but suddenly the promise seemed to fade. You just couldn't be in the limelight any more; you would rather crawl into a dark hole and hide because you are just so scared to do any of the things you formerly enjoyed; you have lost faith in yourself and everything around you.

Those unrealistic thoughts of how inept you are, how terrible you look, and how something bad might happen and people will laugh at and scorn you. You have nothing to substantiate all these unrealistic feelings, but that's the way you feel and nothing can seem to change those feelings. Your social anxiety has taken over. And that's your life right now. Do you want to stay in that position?

That could be you and your situation now, or it could be hundreds more of completely different scenarios of how social anxiety affects lives. But they all involve these incidences that probably will never happen and even if they did they would not have the terrible consequences that you are expecting, that your runaway emotions are causing you to anticipate. Down deep in your heart you really know this, but the feelings are still there, driving your life.

Listen, this social anxiety is real and it needs to be dealt with and properly so. It doesn't just take affect on occasion; it is a daily event in your life. And as you are in the process of determining which treatment is best for you, remember, you are not just looking for years of continued counseling, you are looking for a process that concentrates on the root of the problem and one that produces results: a social anxiety free life of joy and expectation of great things for the future.