101 Excuses

Dear fellow Princesses of Panic and Social Anxiety Studs:
       Hey there! I'm the ultimate Princess of Panic and this is our little corner of the universe where we can all...PANIC! Shh, don't tell anyone! We don't want all those Normal People who have it all together budging in on our space and telling us their old "Get a grip" and "Take deep breaths" chestnuts. We've heard it all way too many times before, haven't we? So, one, two, three...everybody...let go! Panic! Hide in your closet because you're too afraid to answer the door or the phone! Refuse to get out of bed because the thought of eating breakfast, getting dressed, and facing snooty co-workers terrifies you! (Of course, facing snooty co-workers most likely terrifies the Normal People as well.) Pace outside of a restaurant for three hours (or more), clutching an application in your sweaty hand while pondering all the horrible possibilities of actually going inside to turn it in to a manager. (Helpful hint to the Normal People: Us panic princesses and social anxiety studs never end up turning our application in. We convince ourselves that tomorrow will be the Big Day when we'll finally pluck up the courage to charge into that restaurant and thrust our application confidently into the manager's hands. Another helpful hint: It never happens.)
  For those Normal People out there who are scratching their perfectly normal heads in utter confusion, let me, the reigning Princess of Panic, define some terms for you:

Social Anxiety Disorder: also called social phobia, is an anxiety disorder in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. A person with social anxiety disorder is afraid that he or she will make mistakes and be embarrassed or humiliated in front of others.
 
Symptoms: Intense anxiety in social situations, avoidance of social situations, physical symptoms of anxiety including pounding heart, shaking, muscle tension, diarrhea, gagging, and about a million other things my fellow panic princesses and social anxiety studs are all too horribly familiar with.

Panic Disorder: Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms that may include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, gagging/dry heaving, dizziness, and about a hundred other things I seem to discover every day.

This blog is dedicated to the other 12 million Americans out there (and yes, we know you're out there, stop trying to chalk it up to "stress") who are experiencing in some way what I, the reigning Princess of Panic, am experiencing: a panic disorder and social phobia so great it's invaded my everyday life and is making simple things like a trip to the grocery store virtually impossible.  I want help, I want to conquer this darn thing, and I want all my other panic princesses and socially phobic studs to come along for the ride. I'm going to try whatever I can, be it medication, exercise, meditation, eating healthy, random advice I got off of Google, and probably some questionable remedies I'll make up, to get over the seemingly insurmountable hump that is my panic disorder. I'm going to stop making up 101 excuses why I can't go to this party or that job interview because I'm "busy" or "sick". Us panic sufferers are brilliant, and I mean brilliant, at crafting 101 excuses or more to get out of doing stuff we're afraid of. No more. I'm going to pick up the phone right now and call the guy who invited me to his party next week and I'm going to tell him "Sure, I'll come, but I might have to leave early because I don't feel comfortable around lots of people I don't know because I have panic disorder." He'll probably think I'm weird. But hey, you can't please all the Normal People.  Yours truly, Princess of Panic