Thank you both. I honestly don't think I would feel any safer in a hotel room...it's the silence that does me in. My brain starts making up stuff to fill it, and my imagination is super vivid: sometimes I can't tell for sure what's real and what I made up. It's easy to freak myself out really badly. The anxiety bag has been helpful.

What helps the most, I think, is talking to people. Getting on the phone with someone or even texting keeps me grounded enough to keep my brain from going haywire. Writing helps too (so the worksheets helped).

He left this morning (ten days, EEP!!!) and now it's like...I know the noises I'm hearing are the washing machine. I know I'm armed and trained. I know I have an escape route. I know nothing is going to kill me (unless some Navy Seal really has it out for me). And yet the anxious part of my brain is terrified that the noises from the washer are really some twisted murderer straight out of a criminal minds episode running up my stairs. I really need to learn to work through this, I can't stay with friends every time my boyfriend is out of town :-( I'm determined to be independent. So I'm going to self-tan and do my nails and probably not sleep a wink tonight.