Your heart is racing, your muscles are tightening, and the room is closing in around you? You back up slowly, and try to make a hasty retreat. This is what it is like for people who are suffering from social anxiety disorder. Anxiety is defined as a state or cause of uneasiness and apprehension; worry, or intense fear resulting from the anticipation of a threatening event. Anxiety often causes a person to feel agitated and anxious. Many people are faced with social phobias such as nervousness during an interview, giving speeches or seeing their highschool sweetheart for the first time in twenty years. These illustrations seem small to the average individual, but to a social phobic person, these events can seem like life or death. Panic attacks are distinct episodes of acute fear. People who experience these attacks describe them as a suddenly overwhelming feeling of doom, as if they are going to die on the spot. They have problems breathing and they may even hyperventilate. (read full text…)