Anxiety: 1. the state of being anxious. 2. concern about an imminent danger, difficulty, etc.
Anxious: 1. uneasy in the mind.
I have anxiety. It often changes how I go about living my life, but I do the best I can to not be beat down by it. For people who don’t have it (or don’t have it in large quantities), it is probably hard for them to imagine what it is like.
My most recent example is that I wanted to buy two $5 gift cards from McDonald’s. I was afraid they would yell at me for not buying food too. Then I was afraid they would yell at me for only putting $5 on the gift cards. I ended up deciding to buy only one gift card, and I bought it at Meijer while I was already there so I wouldn’t have to face the anxiety of McDonald’s at all. (Of course, in all this I forgot that the people at McDonald’s aren’t paid enough to care about anything. That is a dig at McD’s, not at the employees.)
I have dealt with anxiety all my life. When I was younger, if I felt overwhelmed by anxiety, I cried. Which is why I got picked on in school (creating more anxiety, creating more crying, etc.). The prescription drug company commercials used to make me think I had depression (which I have had twice in my life), but that is not what I have every day. My friend had pretty serious anxiety too–maybe even more than me. But she went on prescription drugs and now that is no longer one of her biggest health issues. I don’t want to be a slave to doctors & pharmaceutical companies. I don’t want to deal with side effects. I don’t want to have to take a pill everyday for something that may only hit me a few times a week. Now, if there was “FAST-ACTING ANXIETY NOSE SPRAY FOR URGENT RELIEF”, I would be all over that. The most common time anxiety hits me is when I am trying to fall asleep. I have anxiety attacks about how I don’t want to be dead one day & cease to exist. Ugh, it is making my chect tighten & my stomach churn just to write it. Nose spray would really come in handy at these times.
Here is an excerpt from an old journal I recently found which provides a nice example:
Last night at the casino the food court was more like a cafeteria and I was scared to tell the grill guy that I wanted a cheeseburger. Then I was too scared to go up and get a refill. I just feel like everyone is always going to yell at me.
And no one has ever yelled at me for such things. Here is a poem from around the same time:
Worried
11/2/2000
I worry about things
I know about
I worry about things
I know nothing about
I worry about things
I have never done before
I worry about things
I do every day
I am beginning to feel
worried
that I worry
2much.
My husband doesn’t understand when I ask him to do something for me because I just cannot do it myself. This usually manifests as asking for help for something in a store and having to talk to a sales associate. Or giving my son a bath. I know that when I start the bath, if he starts crying or bumps his head or something, I can’t freak out and leave him in the bathtub naked. I have to finish the bath, no matter what, all the way through to putting on his PJs. And I find this scary. And too often I let my husband give him a bath because 1. he likes to & 2. I don’t have to overcome my anxiety to do it. Anxiety is probably one of the things that kept my mom at home throughout her twenties.
Sorry. Just felt like venting. I have been cleaning my house & unearthed some old poems/emails/journals that got me on this line of thinking. I wanted this blog to be a mish-mash of my life. And this is a big part of my life, even though many close to me do not know it.
I'm not stalking you. 
Really brave post. It made me feel a crushing weight on my chest just reading it. I’ve also had some anxiety… social, panic attacks, flop sweats, etc. Like you, usually due to irrational fear of being laughed at, ostracized or judged. Not fun. It’s gotten better in recent years… and was never as debilitating as your anxiety sounds. Exercise has helped, deep breathing, calming thoughts, and avoidance typically works great– though, as you point out, it can definitely keep you stuck in the house. Nose spray would be the BEST.