It's been yet another lonely, completely eventless week. If I'm honest, it's been 6 days since I last left the house. My mind always feels so slow, like it's barely functioning.

The longer I'm trapped and alone the more depression inevitably hits me. But of course going out just for a few minutes can be much, much, much worse mentally for me than hiding.

Every day I plan to build up mentally to leaving, but as it draws closer I delay further and further and then realise I can't go out without a really distressing, humilating experience, that I'm bound to mess up in some way and get those terrible mental experiences and bodily sensations.

As I've mentioned before, the fact that my nervousness is so obvious to people makes it so much harder to cope. The nature of these conditions is that you're always afraid about appearing nervous. Some people would say that it's going to create a vicious cycle, and I guess that is one truth but obviously there are much deeper, engrained issues and beliefs that drive it.

The fact that nervousness is viewed as such a negative trait, that outwards 'confidence' is valued above so much else, means I feel pushed into having to maintain this pristine outer shell even when I do feel terrible. It's a falseness that will make people miserable and unable to focus on anything else. Why do we have to hide our wide range of experiences as humans?

Would I even have an anxiety disorder if people didn't jump to view shyness and nervousness as signs of a weak character, stupidity or untrustworthyness and then go on to treat them badly, underestimate or ignore them?

This is the real 'vicious cycle' of anxiety disorders... and there is so, so much more happening to maintain the illness outside the hands of the individual.

I feel such a disconnection between my outward appearance and mannerisms, and my inner self. A lot of people of course try to use these elements to understand you, or to categorise you as a person. As a lot of this is really out of my control, and people are so often incorrect, I feel displaced and dispossessed. But then I'm so scared and trapped under layers of insecurity to challenge that in any way. I freeze in a public setting and don't even feel in control of my body language. Often I feel outside of my body and geniunely become too frightened to move. In that moment (basically a panic attack) I can't even comprehend how it would feel to move a certain muscle, to smile etc.
 
I've always struggled with an obsession about the separation between these two, I guess... 'aspects' of myself. The fact that a person may be giving off signals of whatever nature to other people without realising or meaning to terrifies me. I hate the fact that I can have an intention that will be completely distorted by the time that I have acted. I hate the fact that someone's voice (as one very simple example) can drastically alter the way people see your personality...just all these little cultural things that take away your power. I know you could then say "well is it that easy to make the separation between personality and other aspects of a person?" and I guess the answer is no, because they feed off each other. But I get so distressed by it...

I know this is very common, but I can see myself on camera and think "Oh god, is that how I come across?!" and then feel terrified that I'll make another movement or facial expression like the one I hated. All that "self improvement" advice in relation to appearance and body language just seems to catapult a person into a minefield of unattainable rigid rules... I don't know how anyone can read that stuff without feeling totally overwhelmed and compromised as a person. 

Like I mentioned in the last post, confidence is something created by good experiences... I'm sick to death of hearing "be confident" everywhere, it's entirely empty. I can't even "fake it till you make it" (as you hear all the time), I'm not an actor and I'd only embarrass myself more trying to act a certain way. And how can I even do that, when I'm too nervous to speak or smile or even really move?

I don't feel like I'm expressing myself that well but I'm trying. Tomorrow (today strictly!) is Sunday and I need to get groceries. I've been putting it off for 2 days but I have to manage it somehow. I just wish I could do it without coming back distraught and in tears.

 It's so lonely, empty and hard with this condition.

You'd think someone with agoraphobia for five years might get a response other than disbelief, confusion or disgust but people still don't understand it.

But my whole life so far has been shaped -continuously narrowed- by anxiety.

How can my personal life experience of engrained terror and resulting complete inability to be able to talk to other people be met by confusion and disbelief?

How do you cope with effectively most of the world dismissing what's been controlling, torturing and ruining you (in only slightly different forms) for as long as you can remember?

When your occupational therapist, who feels like your last possible hope, someone who might actually have an understanding of anxiety disorders... says "well we all get anxious, I get nervous about getting lost?"

Obviously I understand that everyone has their own anxities and insecurities and that they're not easy to deal with, but to compare this with a very physically affecting social phobia, that's resulted in severe depression and all sorts that has destroyed my life and left me unable to contribute in any way... is not only massively offensive and upsetting, it's dangerous and harmful.

How can you not become completely misanthropic when you realise you are truly on your own with a fucking monster of an illness?

If I didn't have a severe social phobia I would have friendships.

I would have finished school after A levels, I would have hopefully gone on to university.

I would have never been kept in an inpatient unit, which felt like imprisonment for a year in the middle of my adolescence.

With a degree I would have had more of a chance of finding work.

Without these problems I could be in public without feeling completely frozen, dissociated and petrified that someone may acknowledge me in some way. I might be seen as someone other than a child (I'm 24 now, for fucks sake) or (in the eyes of others) a stupid nervous freak. I could say another word to a person apart from my boyfriend (who I am endlessly appreciative for, please don't get me wrong). It's so tiring to live life being petrified and wary of everything.

I could be out in the world feeling like my personality hadn't been eaten away. I could start a conversation.

I wouldn't have to be constantly aware that (uncontrollably) my body language keeps everyone away, whatever I do.

I would be able to leave my house freely. I wouldn't feel an excruitating fear and discomfort anytime a person was even near me on the street, I could be outside without getting tunnel vision and having and stimulation make me jump out of my skin. People could get near me without me flinching. I could make eye contact with people.

I could enjoy things.

My family wouldn't see me as a lost cause and an embarassment.

Society doesn't seem to realise how destructive it's fixation on confidence is.

If you are lacking in it, people will sniff it out, avoid you, attack you, continously criticise, run you down more and more and more, categorise you, treat you like nothing and then when you are so broken from it you eventually shut yourself away from the world to protect yourself from going over the edge.

Then you might become agoraphobic and people will say "you just have to get out there."

When all you needed for years when you were "out there" was for someone to look past your discomfort and give you the time of day. The fucking backwardness of it.

NOTE- You can't materialise confidence out of nowhere. You need people to not treat you like shit then maybe we will be the people that we were or could be.

Ah, it's June. The months fly by whilst my situation stays basically the same.

There's only so much longer I can live like this. I've been saying it for years but it's getting to a make or break point. I'm 24, I have nothing prepared for my future- I still have no life. I'm engaging the best I possibly can with help on offer. I get the sense my occupational therapist doesn't understand severe social anxiety problems, I know I'm really over sensitive and jump to mind-reading, but there's a lot left unsaid in what she does say, and in the simplicity of the model that she believes is going to help me recover.

I know she judges me for not working, yet she doesn't seem to realise how unable I am to function in the world. I want to work, I want to have a life... what's the point in empty judgement without solutions??

In public I'm this empty shell of a person, hiding from life and any stimulation like it's going to kill me. Aside from my boyfriend I can't think of a time where I've actually had a decent conversation with someone.

Everyone always thinks I'm someone I'm not, or can never find out who I am- I'm too hurt to put anything forward and most people get a totally wrong idea from my appearance so it's pointless. The think is HOWEVER MUCH I want to be myself or relax I am UNABLE. I can't think straight and I totally forget who I am. The physical anxiety causes me agony. And I have no new life experiences so I am a stale person. I'm angry, scared, bitter and touchy.

I have been housebound for 5 years.. and I STILL feel like no one takes my illness seriously. I can't even begin to explain how much I've suffered. What it's like to feel totally helpless and out of control for such a continuous stretch of time. 

I've been fighting really hard to get out more and do more, it's far from a straight line to being better. I'm using the phone more but I still have days where I'm so full of fear that I know I'm going to make a scene and feel terrible anxiety that'll probably go over into a panic attack.

I've tried to be around people- it doesn't get easier. I tried for years and was still the awkward nervy mute that couldn't function properly at all. I never broke past that barrier. I can't understand what people are saying to me or follow simple instructions... I forget how to do the simplest task when i'm around others.

I'm an intelligent, nice, person but no one can know. I don't know what to do to make them know. It never comes through.

I'm always regurgitating these same thoughts but I can never seem to overcome this. The sheer physciality of anxiety is paralysing- people don't seem to understand that. The amount of times I've had people thinking I'm rude or stupid when I physically can't turn to speak or look at someone. The unbelievable terror I get just passing someone on the street. How I feel completely frozen and dissociated when someone actually speaks to me.  How I feel like my heart is going explode and that I'm going to throw up and collape most of the day because how stressed this stuff makes me. It literally destroys me.

Imagine feeling the most terrified you've ever felt, and then feeling that everyday- about everything. Forget about whether it makes sense to you, just imagine feeling it. That's what it's like.

I've thought about suicide for so long, as anyone tends to do with these illnesses- but I know really I would/could never do it.

I know how much other people suffer in different ways, but this is such a horrible invisible illness that ruins your prospects, cuts you off from everyone and makes you seem empty, personality-less, lazy and stupid. I have no friends and would probably die of starvation if I didn't have help to get groceries. I'm getting a bit better at going, but most of the time it's still out of the question.

For nearly a couple of years I've had a problem on and off that seems similar to sleep apnea. It first started when I went on a particular medication. I feel really jittery and paranoid when I go to sleep, all floaty and strange a bit like vertigo, and the second I drop off, my body jolts awake and I'm gasping for breath. This can happen for hours before I get a half decent bit of sleep. This is making my anxiety and depression even worse in the day. Grumble grumble. I'd like to make some more imformative and recovery based posts soon as there have been positives but often it just gets on top of me.