So here I am, don't know how to start so I'll just blurt. This will be kinda long, I am not good at short explanations. I am looking for others with anxiety like mine or at least supportive people of it. My main problem is anxiety attacks and false panic that is beginning to rule my life and my relationships. I am normally a very upbeat, energetic, and loving person, but without support this is starting to rule my life as depression did as a teen. I spent so much energy surviving my teens all on my own that it upsets me now as an adult that the loss of control is returning after all I did to prevent it.

My three biggest triggers are #1. Death. Events as a child lead me to form a severe phobia of dead bodies, dying, and killing. Anything from a dead goldfish to a pet leads me into fits of crying and hyperventilation. A human sends me totally out of control. I can’t get near, look at, or god forbid touch anything dead or I loose it. I developed a fear that there is a void in death that will reach me if I get too close and I panic. Dying and killing revolve around the same void, to die to me is a darkness I greatly fear and to kill another living thing by my hand is just as bad. Just killing a big bug or a spider makes me cry and apologize to it almost obsessively. Many violent brushes with death as a child and adult that lead me to face such an unknown concept is what started the phobia.

#2 Being worthless or less than perfect. I fought my whole life to be better than all other students, ace everything, be a genius kid if you will. I had a lot of family pressure to be a perfect student and advance in careers and life when I was just a kid instead of being allowed to be a kid. I didn’t know how much that had seeded a fear of failure in me until I realized that any grade lower than a B sent me into panic attacks. When I was 15 I was at senior level and dropped out of high school then tested high and got into college early only to drop out again. I couldn’t handle the pressure and began having breakdowns daily. Both my brothers dropped out and went to college at barely 15 and are now nearly graduated with high degrees, I was the black sheep of the family, the ‘baling artists’. I am back in college again, and the attacks are back.. I have a 3.5 yet anything less than a 90% makes me have a panic attack even though I live on my own.

#3 People, public, traffic, cities, bustle. Yes, the big wide world gives my panic attacks. I grew up like a monk, literally. In a hermitage high up in the cascade mountains with no human contact other than my family and animals. We had a family of dear in our backyard, a herd of elk behind the house, bears passing through, and nothing to do but pick berries, meditate, and wander the woods barefoot. Very isolated, and a very dramatically different development as a child. Cars, horns, crowded places, people, and all around chaos of cities sends me into panic. If I don’t live within walking distance of grass, trees, and water I have extreme anxiety. My first experience in a giant city left me suicidal within 48hours.

I battle these things and I am getting better. I can handle smaller bodies such as pets and so forth now without panic. I made it through a quarter of school with only one breakdown. And I live in a city. I don’t know if other people are ruled by phobias and panic like this, I just need people to talk to who share this when it gets ugly for me because it helps me cope and get passed it.

Does anybody else have panic attacks like this and such a high fear of death?