What happens when someone with social anxiety goes to prison - an interesting read

[DanaC]

This caught my attention today. I thought it was a really interesting look behind the criminal experience we see on our screens and in our newspapers.

When most people finish university, they either get a job or go travelling. Unfortunately, I'm not most people. Since the age of 18, I've suffered from social anxiety disorder, a mental illness characterised by severe shyness and a fear of social situations. I could have gone travelling, but sitting in the corner not saying anything in a far off land would have been very similar to doing the same thing in the UK. As for entering the world of work, that was never going to happen – I felt as if I was physically unable to speak whenever I had to talk to anyone I didn't know, and not many employers will give a position to a candidate who doesn't answer any of the interview questions. Instead, I started taking drugs to give me the confidence to socialise, and then became involved in petty crime to get the money to buy them.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that the socially anxious are too timid and hermit-like to become heavily involved in crime, but according to psychotherapist Jacob Barr, who frequently treats patients with this condition, the socially anxious sometimes feel as if there's no other option than to quell their fears and insecurities with drugs. "Too often sufferers of social anxiety disorder will feel that they have a simple choice either to live each day with low self-esteem and anxiety, or to escape into the world of addiction," he says. "Sadly, many choose the latter. A cycle of self destruction is then set in motion, and it's not surprising when a life of crime quickly follows suit."

Although anxiety typically causes people to avoid risky behaviour, Dr Monique Ernst, who has co-authored a paper on the link between risk-taking and social anxiety, believes that the opposite can be true when they're placed under stress. "Neuroscience brings support for a neural substrate of risk-taking in social anxiety," she says. "The neural circuit implicated in reward-and-risk-related processes has been found to be hyper-responsive in socially anxious adolescents." In layman's terms, there are potential neurological motivations for the socially anxious to become involved in criminal activity when placed under what they perceive to be extreme pressure.

In my case, my brain interpreted any and every social interaction as "extreme pressure". Things had gradually got worse since I left home for uni, to the point where I felt terrified speaking to friends I'd known since childhood. My mind was constantly abuzz with negative emotions, and I acted a way that I never would have done in a million years if I had been thinking clearly.

After being sentenced, I was placed in a sweatbox and taken to a remand prison, where I was to be held until they decided what jail I would be held in for the majority of my sentence. Upon arrival, I was ordered over to a table with a member of staff sat at it and asked a series of questions to determine my risk of self-harming and to see whether or not I had any mental health issues. It wasn't a great system for determining if inmates needed treatment; there was no privacy, and other prisoners were milling about in earshot. Mentally ill inmates are often derogatorily referred to as "fraggles" by the cons and treated quite badly, so the prison authorities could have been a bit more discrete.

On the next table along from me, another con was kicking off at the fact that somebody had had the audacity to ask him about his mental health. "I'm not a fucking mental case!" he shouted. "Why the fuck are you asking me that?" That pretty much summed up the other prisoners' attitude towards the issue of mental health.

I told the woman doing the interview that I had social anxiety disorder, and she put me down for a course designed to help at-risk inmates cope with prison life. The course consisted of sitting and drinking cups of tea for ten minutes, then using some gym equipment while a guard took the piss out of how unfit we all were. It was useless in terms of helping inmates with mental health issues, but got me out of my cell for an hour, so I wasn't complaining. Unfortunately, it was hit or miss whether or not the guards would unlock my door and take me out for it each morning, so I only actually got to attend around one in three sessions.

It's a fairly long read, but worth it:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/deali...ehind-bars-040

[xoxoxoBruce]

So he took the road less traveled. Sounds interesting, have to read it.

[Dude111]

I like people who TAKE THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED.. It means they have thier own minds and are not LED by MSM crapola or whatever....... This is a good read and I thank you Dana for providing it