Chris surprises me with his pleasant confidence on the telephone. We arrange to meet in the lobby of a Dublin hotel, so I ask him how I will recognise him. "I'm six-foot-one, I'll be wearing a black suit and I look like George Clooney," he answers. I smile to myself, thinking Chris was being ironic as a way of hiding his discomfort at being insecure, unattractive and socially awkward - if that doesn't sound too cruel.
Forty-eight hours later, in the lobby of a Dublin hotel, I realise that I had it all wrong. Chris (26) doesn't look exactly like George Clooney, but he's pretty darn close. He's handsome and well-groomed in his black suit. Chris is the last person you'd think of as a sufferer from social phobia, the third most common psychological problem after depression and substance abuse, and one which may be as prevalent as one in 50 people, according to one large US study. And suffer he does. After talking for an hour or so, I remark how together he appears to be. Chris invites me to put my hand under his jacket and feel his back. I do (feeling a little awkward myself), and discover that Chris's back and shirt are soaking wet.
I do notice, as we sit talking, that he blushes ever so slightly from time to time, but the effect isn't dramatic. If I weren't looking for it, I wouldn't see it. To be honest, if I hadn't been told by a psychiatrist that Chris was socially phobic, I would have had a hard time believing him.
From earliest childhood, Chris was never happy being the centre of attention. His mother sensed something wasn't quite right. In school, he was so terrified of looking stupid that he began to stutter when asked a question by the teacher. At home, he ate apart from the rest of the family (a father, who has since died, a mother and a sister) because he could not bear for them to see his hands shaking as he tried to hold a knife and fork. "When you care about people, you don't want to let them down," he explains.
A successful basketball player, Chris, at the age of 15, was sent to the US to basketball camp and had a "brilliant" time. Nothing bad happened. Yet when he returned home, he began to be deeply physically distressed in social situations. He would turn bright red, his heart would beat fast, he would start sweating profusely, and his hands would tremble. It was as though the stutter had been replaced by a physiological stress reaction.
He felt "stupid" and knew that his reaction was "irrational", yet he couldn't stop it. And he was so terrified of people seeing him in this state that when he was awarded an All-Ireland trophy for player of the year, he refused to go up to the podium to accept it.
At one point, his basketball coach referred him to a hypno-therapist. Chris also tried acupuncture, homeopathy, counselling and medication. Nothing worked.
After the Leaving Cert, Chris got a job in Intel, the information technology firm. The worst part of his day was dealing with the social challenges of the canteen. His greatest fear was that someone would notice that his tray was shaking as he stood in the queue. So he started leaving the building and driving around in his car at lunchtime to avoid all but the most minimal contact with workmates. Externally, he had trappings of success: a car and several investment properties around Dublin. When he avoided contact with people, sometimes deliberately ignoring their questions, he could came across as arrogant - when beneath the exterior he was trying desperately to stay in control.
In the evenings and at weekends, however, he had an active social life. From the age of 16, he realised that if he kept drinking alcohol in social situations he was fine. "If they could invent a drug that had the same effect as 10 pints, I'd be cured," says Chris. The strange thing is, he never feels drunk when he drinks and says he appears more normal when his blood alcohol level is high. Normally, he will drink five or six "cans" (before going out), followed by seven or eight pints (while out) and sometimes a couple of double-vodkas towards the end of the evening to boot. While many - although not all - social phobics develop addiction problems, Chris feels that he's not an alcoholic because he never drinks alone and limits his drinking to two or three nights per week, although he wishes he didn't have to drink to socialise. Without drink, being in public is agonising for Chris. He is so afraid of being observed and belittled that he has to sit in the back row of the cinema, and even then feels uncomfortable.
The only kind of relationship Chris can have with women is casual friendships in clubs, or one-night stands, where alcohol is the major factor. Meeting a stranger is just about bearable for him, but the better he gets to know someone the more fearful he is of their scrutiny.
Chris cannot live up to his potential in career terms because he must choose jobs in which his contact with others is limited. He wanted to apply to the Garda, but knew it was useless with his disability. Basketball coaching was another career he longed for, but again the social demands were too high.
After four years at Intel, Chris became so frightened of making a fool of himself in public that he stopped going to work and hid behind drawn blinds in his mother's house. Intel was supportive and kept him on full-pay for six months, but Chris could not face the workplace again.
Eventually, Chris was able to get behavioural therapy after hearing about it on the radio. He felt better just being in a group of a dozen other social phobics and seeing how normal and nice they appeared, many with good jobs and families. He stopped feeling like a freak.
So for the past couple of years, Chris has been managing carparks, a perfect job in many ways, because Chris feels safe inside his brick bunker, where the world outside is reduced to the images on video screens. He loves dealing face-to-face with customers - even troublesome ones, which seems odd, considering his disability. He explains: "When I come out of the brick bunker, I am the one in control." He knows how to behave with authority, whether it's compassion or a tough line that is required.
Still, it's not the complete life that Chris would like to have. Where's the future? Chris has been participating in research with Dr Mairead Condron, a psychiatrist at St Vincent's Psychiatric Hospital, Fairview, which is looking at the possibility that social phobia is caused by malfunctioning neurotransmitters in the brain. She has seen civil servants, musicians and teachers with the condition. Stage performers may feel perfectly in control while on stage, but then feel that they are falling apart in one-to-one social situations.
Dr Condron points out that social phobia is far more extreme than simple shyness. Lots of people feel uncomfortable socially - which is why alcohol is a social lubricant. But it is not normal to feel so exposed that you have to start drinking before you leave the house. Performance anxiety is common, but most people feel nervous the night before. Social phobics worry about it for weeks, unable to sleep, and then are likely to avoid the situation be calling in sick. "Basically social phobia is a fear and anxiety experienced in social or performance situations, in which a person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others," she says. It interferes with all aspects of life. "It can greatly interfere with a person's vocational prospects and socially can be horrendous, so that people can feel very isolated and depressed and start abusing alcohol."
While behaviour therapy and drug therapy may help ease the situation, these methods don't work for everyone and may not relieve the phobia completely. The bottom line is that until researchers find out what exactly is going wrong in the brain of social phobics, the condition will remain incurable.
Chris agreed to the interview for this article because he wanted to help others. The first step to getting help is realising you are not alone.
If you would like to know more and to talk to someone about social phobia, contact Dr Mairead Condron at St Vincent's Psychiatric Hospital, Fairview, Dublin (phone: 01-8842496, email: cmairead@indigo.ie)
Sticky moments
Social phobics fear and avoid many of these situations:
Participating in small groups
Eating or drinking in public places
Acting, performing or giving a talk in front of an audience
Working, writing or telephoning while being observed
Urinating in a public bathroom
Speaking up at a meeting
Looking at people they don't know very well in the eye
Giving a party