I have a problem, and its getting out of hand. Half of me wants to admit it publicly and really work hard on it and make everything okay… the other half wants to deny it and keep lying in digging myself further into this hole and ignore it and let myself break down. The latter seems easier, but its just making things harder in the long term- and its not actually easy anyway because its just increasing the stress. But the lies started so long ago and going back to the start makes me seem like such an awful person for lying this long, but I'm not, I've just been lying to myself really. I've been denying that my anxiety is a problem, that its just a part of me personality. But I'm realising I really do need to change.

And lying to other people… I'm not talking about a huge lie of anything I've done or something, I'm talking about little lies about what I've NOT done, really. Like if I was too anxious to leave the apartment, I'd say the post office was empty, or the dry cleaners was closed, or I forgot to do things I'd meant to do. This happens a lot. I want to be a good girlfriend and have the shopping done when my boyfriend gets home, or let him stay on the couch and I'll go get the pizza… but its so much easier to go out there with him. If he can't come to a get together somewhere, chances are I wont. I start thinking about how I'm physically going to get on a train or a bus and what happens if I'm the first one there and all these other things that could go wrong and I just don't go. Whenever I meet him at the pub or at the movies, my heart is absolutely racing. I have to go through every scenario in my head to make sure I'm prepared to deal with any situation.

I am disproportionately proud of myself when I do things on my own. I went to the post office and was stoked for hours. I handled dentist appointments and the pharmacy and everything when I had a wisdom tooth out, and thought I might finally be getting better… but that was short lived.

At work, I spend most of the time berating myself in my head for how awkward I am. I thought working only 3 days a week would give me time to deal with my crazy and not have it interfere, but that didn't work out. I work with a photographer and his wife in their house, and they have 2 kids and clients coming and going and clients calling on the phone. All this interaction in close quarters makes me so uncomfortable. I say stupid things and then kick myself for hours and that only makes me worse. I avoid the phone like the plague. I plan ahead of when I should go make tea and go to the loo and have my break to maximise my time alone and minimise any time with clients or my bosses. I've started lying to them, which I don't want to do because they're just the nicest people… but if I'm having a panic attack on the floor and I have to be at work, what do I do? I make up stupid lies about people being sick or me being sick and I don't go, and I stay at home berating myself. If I'm not berating myself, I'm doing things to occupy my mind, like playing solitaire or reading. Or eating. Or exercising. I alternate between intense binge eating and intense working out. I know neither is healthy. I know I should be able to walk out that door in the morning and catch the bus and go to work, but it all gets so overwhelming and I just can't.

I feel like I can't see out of the corners of my eyes, my shoulders poke out too far, my heart is racing and I can't catch my breath, my hands are clammy and my extremities feel clumsy. My mind is muddled so I can't think clearly. I realise I've got tears pouring out of my eyes. When this happens I work quickly to get myself out of whatever it is I needed to do (like message my boss saying I can't go in) and when that obstacle is out of the way I can calm down eventually but the feeling doesn't entirely go away.