Nightlydemon
04-24-2015, 04:22 PM
Hello. I am a 24 year old college student in my junior year. I've struggled with all sorts of anxiety for the better part of my life, mostly in the form of phobias. Up until I was about 9 years old, my only phobias were acrophobia, arachnophobia, and coulrophobia. When I was 9, I started going through puberty and it became far more noticeable that I was not a gender conforming child. My already precarious social standing was thrown well off the edge at that point in my life and I started to withdraw from normal social events. It wasn't until I was about 11 that I had a case of full blown social phobia. It got so bad that I actually skipped school for 3 weeks straight. I moved to a different town and school in middle school and started drinking Listerine just to pass as normal in school until a group anime and bibliophiles decided to "force" me to be their friend. I say "force" with all the love in the world because at the time I was never going to approach anyone for any reason. I like to think they sensed my level of loneliness and wanted to help. I stopped drinking and started to come out of my shell more and my fears were starting to not rule my life so much when my family had to move just as I was starting high school. I was put into a high school in a town that was very similar to the one my social phobia started in and I began to relapse into self-isolation and the deep loneliness that social anxiety often brings. I wasn't lucky in high school like I was in middle school. Where a group people in middle school noticed me and showed me great compassion, several different groups in high school noticed me as an injured buffalo and they pounced like a pack of ravenous wolves. High school pushed me so far that I dropped out as soon as I was allowed to take the GED. I spent the next year after that refusing to leave the house with my only human interaction being with my parents and behind a computer screen. When I was given the choice to get a job, go to college, or get out, I chose to go to college. I first thought college was helping, but I now realize it was just a stasis for recovery. I originally thought that since no one noticed me at all, which was better than being noticed and attacked, I had reached a point where I was safe and didn't need to be afraid of people anymore. Even with this thought, I was still terrified of coming out of my shell for anyone. So much so that I sought professional help and have gained a lot of insight into all sorts of different bad behaviors that I have. I am a very emotional person, I always have been, so even with the logical parts of my mind telling me that I have no need to fear or be anxious in any situation, especially class presentations, the emotional parts of my mind strongly over ride that logic and I have a partial panic attack. If anyone is watching me when it hits, I start to panic even more out of fear that they will attack me emotionally for panicking over whatever I'm panicking over. I've never personally been attacked in anyway for having a panic attack around people before, every time it happens I'm met with quite a bit of compassion. Even with all the compassion, my panic attacks haven't become less frequent. They haven't become more frequent, but they do effect my general functioning from week to week. At current, I have about medium anxiety towards pretty much everything. A couple days ago a wasp found it's way into my dorm room, and instead of trying to shoo it out the window, I freaked and ran to the RA to get rid of it. I was so terrified that he'd make fun of me that I lied and said I was mildly allergic to wasps and bees when the reality is that I panicked over an insect that would only cause me, and most of the population, a few hours of mild discomfort. I know this is not a high quality of life and I've been very anxious ever since over the penetrating guilt I feel for having lied about a medical condition.