Back, After the Break by Osher Günsberg

Author:Osher Günsberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

sixteen

help wanted

Being in LA brought freedom of movement and the idea that I could reinvent myself to a whole new group of people. I felt far less afraid of strangers, or so I thought. But soon Noa started to see the fear in me and I’m sure it freaked her out. Once we were lost looking for a restaurant while driving through West Hollywood so she pulled over, rolled the passenger window down and told me to ask a waiting valet parking attendant where the place was. The car came to a stop, my window went down and I froze. I couldn’t say a thing. The poor man stood there staring at this wide-eyed blond guy petrified in the front seat, and Noa had to lean across me to ask the question.

I could tell that she was concerned about me acting like that and for me that was the final straw. When I got back to Sydney I pulled the piece of paper off my wall that the kind receptionist had given me and finally made a time to see that doctor.

In early 2007 I met Dr Ian Chung. His office was plastered with photos of him with superstars; all the pictures had autographs on them and comments such as, ‘You saved my life’. My favourite photo was of him walking across the tarmac from a small aeroplane carrying a medical bag as he followed Mick Jagger, who was waving to photographers.

I told Dr Chung what was going on and he explained to me that I had something called social phobia: fear of meeting people. He taught me a relaxation technique to use when panicky thoughts started to cascade, adding that meds would help. He insisted that I couldn’t just take the meds and expect this social phobia to get better. They would form a part of a treatment protocol that involved hard work on my part in reshaping how I thought about things. I said I’d rather have a few beers than numb my brain with drugs and he understandably got angry.

After we arranged another appointment he gave me a DVD to explain what social phobia and social anxiety were. When I got home I hit ‘play’, and it was as if the production crew had simply stuck a camera through my window and filmed my life. I had been thinking I was a special snowflake and that no one knew what it was like to be me, but it turned out I was exhibiting bog-standard symptoms.

Ian and I worked together to try and turn things around, but the fear kept getting worse. By now I was refusing every single invitation to any event or even social functions, except for poker night in a dark room full of familiar faces. But when I ran off to LA I couldn’t ask Noa to halt her vibrant social and work lives in order for me to hide in our apartment. I started to freeze up and lurk in corners at dinners

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