Thanks, that makes me feel slightly less of a weirdo.
Btw, your experience sounds pretty bad, but just a word of warning: alcohol helps, it helps me too, but it's not a long term solution merely a short term fix. Long term it creates a hell of a lot of problems, your health, your friends, your wallet, it's not worth relying on alcohol to get you through stuff because in the end it'll come back at you.
Oh I just noticed you said you've quit, that's great, good for you, I hope you've worked out more effective coping strategies.
Thanks for the reply. Believe me, 3 years totally alone, I know humans need social interaction, I was talking to myself constantly and I think I would have gone absolutely bat **** crazy without the internet for the small bit of interaction it provided.
The thing is, I don't really see how any one can help me because I'm too scared to ask for the help. I don't see how any therapy could ever be effective as I'd have to talk to a therapist, ie an authority figure, ie my worst nightmare, in order to do it. And I've tried the antidepressant/beta blockers/benzo route without much success there either.
I have no idea where the breaking silence thing stems from, it's the actual opening my mouth getting the words out bit, they're all right there in my head I open my mouth...silence and massive massive feeling of awkwardness. I guess I can work on it, if only because poking my girlfriend pisses her off