Well, I haven't logged on or written a blog in over a year. I had found that being here and looking at the other people who were going through what I was made me feel less like it was going to change and as though it would be like this for the rest of my life.

In January of 2008 I had become an agoraphobic through a stressfull series of events. At 28, it had finally dawned on me that I'd been having anxiety attacks in bursts all of my life, but I had never known what they were and so dismissed their importance. After I was given a name of what was happening to me, I just could let go. I thought about it all the time, beliveved I'd have them in the worst places and would be embarrassed. I stopped going out entirely and when I started having anxiety attacks at home by just the thought of going out, things hit rock bottom.

I once sat in my house and had an almost 7 hour long anxiety attack. I thought I was going to die.

I am back here now because I've finally won. I don't have anxiety attacks anymore and I now have a job as a bartender and am finishing the first semester of college I've had in almost 8 years with a 4.0 gpa. Sure, the anxiety will try and sneak up on me sometimes, but I know now that I have control over what I think about and what I experience. It's liberating. So while I disappeared on you guys without so much as a second blog, I'm back because there are many of you that still need the support.

I hope you all are well and look upon the holiday season that's coming with a sense of joy. You can't understand what it;s like to feel good unless you have felt the fear and depression that comes with anxiety and I believe that people like us have the capacity to be some of the happiest, most fullfilled people in the world -because- we know how bad it can get.

It get's better. I never thought it could, but it can. <3

~Kristy