webMD post and whatever

Hello strangers. . . My anxiety keeps me from seeking out real help, so I thought I'd get some thoughts from the internet. Here's the rundown: I'm 32 yr male, single, shy, I've always had anxiety. When I was a kid I some times wet myself in the class room because I was too "shy" to raise my hand and be excused. Before I finished the 4th grade, I was taken out of school for unrelated reasons, and lived an isolated life with family in a semi bush-like setting with little social activity outside of church on sunday. My upbringing was extreme. It's understandable that in my adult life I have had anxiety and trouble fitting in to the world, as well as some depression to go along with it. Here are my thoughts now; I've been away from that isolated lifestyle for 13 yrs now, and still struggle with anxiety/depression. In my twenties I went through long phases of fear because I felt dangerous to others, as well as myself. The best way I can describe it is like a craving in my abdomen. For years I tried different methods to ease the feeling- everything from working myself to exhaustion, to gorging myself on various foods that seemed to help some. After an attempted suicide, I've been able to find some peace and help that I've very much needed. I've had lots of success with several depression meds, and have brought my anxiety to a manageable level- but I still have days (like today) when I am completely lost to something unreal, that tells all of my instincts to curl up in a ball and rock myself to either sleep or exhaustion. Every time I want to rip my stomach out of my body as if it is some foreign invader. Today I locked myself in my room and couldn't be bothered by anyone. I couldn't even take the trip across the hall (3 ft) to use the bathroom. I know anxiety well, I've learned to deal with it since I was an infant. I feel like there is something really wrong that comes out in force when I have these bad days. I my early twenties I sincerely thought I was schitzo. . . But my doc at the time treated me for PTSD (my life being the traumatic event) I've since gotten a handle on a lot of things and don't feel dangerous to anyone, nor do I think I ever could be- a long cry from 23. But I still feel like there is something sleeping inside waiting to break out. The thing that concerns me most today is doing and saying things that I don't remember when I get really stressed- like moving things, turning things on and leaving them, and putting thinks in strange places. . . I sound crazy to me. obviously life is going to be a different experience for me than most. . . good thing i'm an artist. But I would like to not put things in my fridge that don't belong there, or at least remember when I do. Ok, so there's my novel... crossing my fingers and hoping I don't wake up to white coats in the morning. but i'm seriously concerned that I'm slowly going nuts................. Obviously I have a lot on my mind. all the time. aside from trying to maintain a grip on myself, or at least what little sanity I may have left, I am also troubled now with good complications in life. Love, once again. But this one is different. So i've met some one amazing... well reconnected really. Reconnected again that is. That's a story for another day. She's amazing and sweet, and totally into me. :) But as I contemplate, and dare I say plan this new future, I am once again reminded that my mind is utterly broken as anxiety seems to threaten the future i'd like to create. I want to work. I want to be a part of the world. I want to be able to have all those things that a grown adult should have. . . yet so many of those things seem overwhelmingly difficult for some one who has trouble even placing an order in a restaurant he's never been to before. So i'm stressed. I can lock away the world for a few hours, or days, but eventually it demands entry to my life. I have one other close friend, on the verge of having no other close friends. Another story for another day. I have no job, no money, and really not sure how everything is going to work out in the end. I've gotten used to being a failure and an outcast. I'm in no danger of falling apart. I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of people coming and going. I don't want to lose my best friend, but I'm scared I may have to. It's not like it hasn't happened before. One thing I'm certain of is that I'm not willing to risk losing Sarah. (that's my love ;) ) She's it as far as i'm concerned. The world can fall apart and I don't care. She may be the last thing I will truly care about in life- the last thing I think i'm willing to care about. Everything else is just. . . some one else's story. Let some one else care. I think I'm ranting now. I may not even be making any sense at all. But that's ok. I'd rather write and not make any sense, than not be able to write at all. I think everybody needs to rant once in a while to know what they really want to say. So what do I want to say? Well the above is a slightly altered thread I posted on web MD just to see if I'm crazy or not. Why? Because I've got something really good in my life that I can't lose to my own failings. I really think if I do then I'm just done with the rat race altogether. I'll hit the road and never look back, and I'll almost certainly never try or care again. So yeah... it's pretty important to me that I find a way to make life work this time. The trouble is that I don't know how to do it. I've done the meds, I've done the therapy, i've taken and worked and lost pretty much every kind of job you could think of- some I was under qualified for, some that I was over, and some that I was just lucky to have. In the end they were most all lost the same way. Me. Not me as in intent, me as in I'm a grade A crappy human being who can't keep a job to save his life. What do you do when you wake up and the prospect of putting your feet to the ground is as if NASA has asked you to build them a new rocket that day? Well my feet hit the floor. Sometimes I even get my teeth brushed and put some cloths on, but more often than not something happens on the way to the front door and I may as well be a dead rocket scientist. So there you go world. That's day in my life. Give yourself ten or twelve of those a month and multiply that by your lifetime. So what is your genius advice to fix my problems that after thirty-two years of living with I can't even stay ahead of? Let's hear the answer that's gonna keep the pieces in place for me.