
When Young People Suffer Social Anxiety Disorder (2014) - milankragujevic
http://careforyourmind.org/when-young-people-suffer-social-anxiety-disorder-what-parents-can-do/
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milankragujevic
I myself suffer from severe SAD and find it difficult to leave the house let
alone go to school or interact with peers. I'm 17 currently, but I'm afraid
it's too late and that I will never get my dream job as a programmer, without
school, and this leads me further into depression and isolation. Therapists
haven't helped and I'm not sure who or even whether anyone can help me. I
don't know what to do HN, help me...

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account1984
I suffer from severe anxiety that is nearly crippling, it basically rules my
life. Disclaimer, it's not social anxiety, more of a general crushing anxiety
a majority of the time. But I wanted to write to offer some reassurance.

You are young, and with that is great and abundant hope for you; it may not
seem so now, but your future could be very bright. When I was young, I felt
that I would never be strong enough to make it past all of the sociological
hurdles necessary to move in and up in this field. Like you, I do not feel
that therapists have helped at all - honestly, for me I feel talking about
things sends me into a tail spin of much deeper anxiety. It can be difficult
making clinicians aware, but there are pharmacological solutions that do help
- you need to be a team with your doctor, rather than letting them simply run
the show (not to be presumptuous, you may already have this sort of
relationship).

I managed to break into my field by doing a project on my own and showing what
I was made of, then presenting it to the group I was displacing with the
internal hope of selling it. Instead it landed me my first job - wherein I was
initially underpaid, but it was still more money than I dreamed of making at
that age (I was in my early twenties). I was quickly identified as a
passionate (and opinionated) expert and received very large raises over the
next several years with them. When I did finally leave, the experience I
gained there, made bargaining a lot easier. It's important at that stage not
to be manipulated, you still may find yourself too-fresh in areas of
negotiation and end up going backwards in your career. So perhaps aim for
folks who aren't used to hiring software engineers, so you both have some
equal footing on the negotiating experience. After one or two jobs, your
experience will speak for itself, and any "quirks" people may see with you,
will be dismissed as "everyone is different" and you can be accepted for the
brilliance you provide rather than the image you worry your anxiety elicits.

TL;DR, aim for small non-IT shops (eg. state & local government, factories
that need programming, companies breaking the small to mid-size barrier that
now need programmers), do projects to show your worth (maybe even work that
would benefit them). Make a name for yourself and show your true brilliance.

