"i have dealt with depression, anxiety, social phobia or social anxiety which ever label they want to use for it these days. i have dealt with these issues pretty much since kindergarten. well mainly the extreme social phobia/anxiety at that time which they used to just call &quot;shy&quot;. when i was 18 and was seeing a psychologist he diagnosed me as having agoraphobia, i&#039;m guessing because they really didn&#039;t have the term &quot;social phobia/anxiety&quot; at that time. i finally started taking paxil and it worked good for 10 yrs then i maxed out on dosage and it stopped working. tried all the other ssri&#039;s/ssnri&#039;s. effexor xr worked best but didn&#039;t help anxiety/or social phobia issues. got on klonopin, then xanax eventually. benzodiazepines are life savers for socialphobia."