I'm sorry - this is going to be quite a long post.

Hi! My name is Sophia and I'm new to this forum. I probably should start off by saying that I've never been diagnosed with an Anxiety Disorder of any sort. In fact, I've only ever been diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa (recovered?), and Depression, and the last time I ever met with a psychiatrist was two 1/2 years ago.

This all started after my attempt at recovering from Anorexia backfired and I started bingeing horribly as a new way to cope. And I gained a lot of weight from that. Though now I've stopped both restricting and bingeing and my weight has sort of stabilized, I still do engage in these behaviors once in a while.

I'm 19 years old and should be graduating from college very soon. But I've not even enrolled myself into a college yet. In fact, it's been a while since I've stepped out of my front door to go pick up my letters from the mailbox. I have an extreme fear of going out of my house. By extreme, I mean I've considered suicide as a way to escape having to see people and places I once knew. (Though I've never attempted suicide before...).

This has been going on for two years. This year alone, I've only left my house for a maximum of 32 hours entirely (accompanied by my parents - and several layers of clothing and scarves to hide my face and body). I'm pretty sure I've embarrassed my parents many times during our outings by freaking out in public whenever I was asked to enter a shop or a restaurant. It's terrifying to even think of doing that. I've stopped answering the phone unless it's my mum or dad. I've stopped sending emails to all my friends (except one, who probably hates me). I've not seen anyone I once knew for ages. I only ever go out if I'm at least 90% sure we're going to a place where no one I know'll be there. And every time my parents manage to convince me to go out, there'll be a moment where I start crying or pinching myself or my mum (who usually holds my hand wherever I go, so I don't freak out too much) and just start acting like a child (I'm sure it's hard on my parents and I feel bad for behaving that way). That's just when I go out.

When I'm at home, sometimes I experience these 'panic attacks', though I'm not too sure if they're considered panic attacks given that what I experience doesn't sound as severe as what people on the internet describe their panic attacks as being. When I do get these 'attacks', my chest starts to hurt, I feel nauseated (and have problems drinking water), my hands and fingers always feel prickly and numb, I feel giddy and weak, my hands shake a lot, and I feel these 'chills' and sometimes my face feels hot (internally). They usually last for about 10 to 20 minutes (four times a week, max). Sometimes they last for 50 minutes, but those are quite rare. Are these even considered panic attacks? Because I've never felt like I was about to die, or depersonalized whenever I got these 'attacks', unlike everyone else who've described their panic attacks online. So I don't know...

I've developed several problematic behaviors/personality traits in the past two years as well, but I guess those don't have anything to do with what I'm asking. So I'll talk about that later. I hope I made sense! Sorry for such a long post!