When I get this anxious, I just shut down and disconnect and totally live in my head. I feel like I have so much going on in there that when I try to get any of my thoughts out, I just go blank.

Not quite a breakdown. I don't know what it's called. It's almost like the opposite of a breakdown. I feel like exploding, but instead I implode, and then I distract myself with daydreams, fantasies, random reading, and everything that takes me away from a world that feels unsafe.

The more I do that, the more I am scared of coming back (to my life, responsibilities, and fears). Right now it's almost as if the thought of staying present in the here and now is enough to make my entire body freeze up.

I guess it makes sense that I've been dealing with this now more than ever… I go to a university in which my father is a professor and my younger sister is also a student, 2 years younger than me, and graduating this year. (I am supposed to too). She is outgoing, has always been a full time student there, great at doing things the conventional way, seems to benefit from my father being at the University.. I am the opposite– though I have a high gpa (she does too), I have taken part time classes most of the time, and thoughts of even being on campus often bring up terror and anger.  I'm not going into family and childhood stuff here…  but I understand the dynamics…  but changing the actual behaviors (me: avoidance, etc) is SO hard! Sometimes it's almost as if part of me is trying to act out anger from the past, but then the other part of me is terrified of that anger–so I mainly self-sabotage and take it out on myself in stupid ways.

 I am falling very behind in [at least one of] my classes–but it is pretty easy work..it's just the volume of it (busywork) that overwhelms me. And I assume I can't do it and I've already failed, and become scared of the prof being angry at me. She is very understanding–I told her in the beginning of the course about my anxiety and depression and she told me to let her know what I was having difficulties, and said she would do her best to be supportive and accomodating. I sent her an e-mail today apologizing for falling behind and saying I would have a certain assignment for her by tommorow. I didn't mention the anxiety again though (should I have?)

I worry about sounding whiny or creeping her out w/ too much information (I read an article about what some profs don't like in e-mais from students)…though I guess all I could say is that I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety recently?

Hours will pass of me being scared of even looking at a certain page or beginning an assignment. And I obsessively think about it in the way you would think about a social interaction you're very scared of (and ultimately opt out of). It's like I have a phobia of doing anything for school…

I exhaust myself with this all to the point that I have a bad headache and feel completely burnt out physically, barely sleep, and then I think back on what I accomplished..and it's virtually nothing!

Does anyone else experience this? I almost worry that it's not real and I'm making it up or something (though why would I?!) and fooling myself.

 I am not sure how to deal with all of this.