Hello?

First off I'm not really sure why I put a ? mark there (at the title) but hey it just felt like what I wanted to do.  Anyway I have had this blog for about a year now and have never written anything and I figured, its about time.  (I mean this is called shy girl speaks, so you can't blame me I'm new to this whole talking to people thing it just took me 12 months to warm up to it. ha!)  I guess I should start with the basics.  I'm Anna, and I have social anxiety. (Hi Anna)  If you don't know social anxiety is a form of anxiety disorder where the person is essentially afraid of people.  It is kind of a hard thing to deal with since there are people pretty much everywhere you go and it is hard to avoid them unless you become a hermit (which I would say I am... mildly).  I have had this problem for a long long time, like at least since 6th grade.  Unfortunately I didn't know it was a problem until maybe 10th grade.  At that point I knew it wasn't normal to be so scared of people but I still didn't know it was a real disorder.  I learned that it was real in my psych class in 12th grade and then researched it some more.  By the winter of my freshman year it was pretty bad.  I lived in the dorms for the fall semester and over the course of that semester I basically slid off the cliff.  I remember sitting in the stall of the girls bathroom for 20 min because there were people in the bathroom and I was too afraid to come out.  Now of course in my mind this made perfect sense I went in and then when I wanted to come out the girls were in the bathroom so I waited for them to leave only they didn't but after about a min of waiting it was too weird for me to come out so I had to wait for them to leave but it took 20 min.  That's totally normal right (WRONG!!)  After suffering through my fall semester, having no friends and basically never leaving my room except for class and to go to the group I was attending so I could feel a little less miserable because it took up 3 of my 5 evenings I decided college wasn't for me, at least dorm life and moved back home.  I knew I needed help but was too scared to get it and no one was going to get it for me.  It wasn't until February when I was in the hospital for totally unrelated things that I finally decided it was time and asked to speak with a psychiatrist.  The psychiatrist told me that I have social anxiety and some OCD tendencies, which was what I thought but it was nice to here a professional confirm my suspicions.  She prescribed meds to help me and they did.  I wouldn't say that they fixed it, actually far from that, but they made it possible for me to feel normal again, which was/ is nice!  Oh I forgot prior to meeting with the psychiatrist I had met with two different psychologist.  One of them didn't really think anything was wrong with me and told me to just talk to people and the other was a little too freaky for my liking.  I realize at this point you might be wondering "what is social anxiety? ...Scared of people, what does that mean?"  So basically when I am around people I am very uncomfortable and nervous feeling and can't act how I want.  I used to describe it, before I knew what it was, as if I was taken over by another person when I was around people.  She is "Whitey" as I like to call her, because when I am like this it is as if Anna left and all that is there in her place is a white, blank screen.  Its not that my mind is filling with things to say and I just don't say them, there is nothing there to say.  In addition to this I have many other fears, mostly centering around people but they include: airport security, driving, calling people on the phone, talking to people, asking questions, walking across a room, walking toward or past someone, seeing someone I know ,and strangely unrelated dams!  I am sure I have more fears but that is what I could come up with now.  One skill I have, if you can call it that, is avoidance.  I am very good at avoiding things, since I am afraid of something and it makes me nervous I usually avoid it so over the years I have gotten quite good at that.  The problem is that it is messing with my life.  I can't make or keep friends because I don't like to talk to them on the phone, also if they are a new friend I don't like running in to them.  I can't call anywhere so if the information isn't available on the web or in a book I must go without it.  I also don't like asking questions so if I don't know the answer I either need to figure it out or do something different.  I used this same technique for spelling, if I didn't know how to spell the word I just used a different one.  Unfortunately although there are many ways to say something there are far less ways to go about your life with the bare minimum social interactions and still have an enjoyable time.  In January I also got a book and CD therapy set to work through this with.  It is starting to help but I have been doing it rather slowly and it is a long process.  Also it is a lot of work because part of what I need to do to get rid of this problem is the very things I am scared of, which is really tough.  And that brings me to today!
          This was a good day for me, "Why?" you might ask.  Well I made a phone call to a real place, with real people that were strangers and asked them for stuff.  Now I know in regular people world this is not a big deal but in my world it is a huge deal, this is the kind of thing that I would dread for days, I might even loose sleep over it, and it could be as simple as calling a place to ask for their hours.  After making my call I have to tell you calling people is not that bad.  Its not exactly the thing I would like to do all the time but it was ok and I did it.  I got what was needed be be covered out, I got my information and I am still alive and just fine.  (on a side note if you are wondering why I am so scared of people or what I think is going to happen, for the most part I have no idea, some instances like airport security I figure they will think I am a terrorist and cart me off to jail despite me telling them otherwise and all this simply because I looked a little nervous.  Which is the problem I am nervous they will think I am nervous which makes me more nervous.  Ok well now that I have dragged you off topic so far lets go back)  That was only the 3 third phone call I can remember making in a few years.  (Pretty crazy for a 20 year old huh?)  So now as I continue on this journey to normalness (if there even is such a thing, ok maybe just a new craziness) I invite you to come along.  Its bound to be a crazy ride, plus I might even throw in a few explanations of my strangeness which is bound to be a little interesting!