phone stress

I am a functioning agoraphobic. I can only travel from my home to work. Now, I am finding that I cannot make myself talk on the phone. I can email, Facebook, and even text, but I cannot make myself answer the phone, return or make phone calls. Does anyone else have this experience?

I am not agoraphobic and don't have huge social anxiety to begin with so I'm not sure if my answer will be able to help

I am anxious when it comes to phones -phone calls. I finally figured out it dates back to when I was training to be a manager at an old job and I answered the phone. The man on the other end screamed at me and I tried to put my boss on because I really didn't know what to do but he just kept going on. I ended up crying and when he came in later that day my boss made him apologize for essentially verbally abusing me over $10 that weren't my fault.

It's been since then that I've been nervous with phones. I don't like answering them and usually don't if I don't know the number. I don't like calling people -texting is much less stressful. What I do find helpful is being prepared. If I need to call someone while I'm at work -i have my "map" planned and try to have all the answers ready for questions that can come up. I have water with me incase my voice starts to give out. I do a practice conversation before hand "hi, my name is silent_tsol, I'm calling from abc company about ___". I also try to have short conversations with people I'm more comfortable with on the phone. That way maybe I'll eventually learn that not every ring leads to a madman on the other end waiting to yell