Anxiety, Awkward and Antisocial

I get anxiety.
I hate it. As anyone with anxiety does.
It's better now than it used to be. At one point, I shook if I left the house.
Even among my closest friends, I'd panic if I wasn't in my environment and I'd have to leave. I'd feel my heart start pounding and racing. I'd get hot. I'd feel dizzy. I'd feel like I needed to cry.
Put on top of this always having my blood pressure in the back of my mind - runs in the family - I'd worry more about what the anxiety was doing to my blood pressure.
Which would make it worse.


Like I said. I'm a lot better now.
But there's things that set me off. Like people you don't know talking to you in inappropriate places e.g.
Doctor's Surgery (where I went to get my BP situation assessed). Waiting room scene went something like this:
Lady: What a gorgeous little girl!
Me: Thanks.
Lady: She looks new?
Me: Six weeks.
Lady: Gorgeous. (At which point the conversation should have drifted into a comfortable silence)
Lady: My son was little like that. my daughter wasn't so little. She wasn't as cute as her either, but she's beautiful now. (said daughter was sitting right beside her) That's why we're here. She's getting pains in her shins. I think they're just growing pains, because she was short and then she just shot up! She went from having size 6 feet to size 9 overnight! You're tall, aren't you? Did you ever get growing pains? Do you remember what it felt like? How long did they last? Oh, your daughter will be lucky if she ends up tall like you. I'm not very tall at all.
Me: Awkward.

Does she not realise how awkward I feel? I'm not responding to her questions at all. I'm starting to panic. Please leave me alone. I don't particularly like social situations in places I'm not used to being. I don't like having conversations about these sorts of things with strangers. Please. Stop. Talking.
But of course, I don't SAY any of that, do I?

No, instead I sit there and try not to freak out, then get called into the doctor and get told my BP is 150/100.
How do I explain to him "yeah, probably because the lady in the waiting room wouldn't stop talking to me so I started panicking."
Crazy....


 Pushy sales assistants set me off too. Yesterday I went to buy Marvel VS Capcom for the ps3.
There was a new guy there, along with the guy (Steve) who was normally there. The new guy is a manager at another store.
He kept asking if I wanted to pre-order any games. To which I cleverly responded (remember I'm BUYING a game) "I don't game." AWKWARD. I then had to explain I'm more of a computer games kind of person. He then went into a big spiel about the new computer games being released. I started to panic. Me "I play WoW." please shut up
THEN he talks about the WoW like games coming out. Meanwhile Steve - wonderful man that he is - said to the other guy, "hey, you leave her alone, she's MY customer." (being friendly of course) so other guys wanders off occasionally mentioning a game in my direction.

THANK YOU STEVE.
Steve then has a conversation with me about a couple of games coming out that it's possible I may like, because he has bothered to ask about what style I enjoy. Not Awkward. Panic gone.

A lot of this leads me to be anti social. Going out and seeing my friends is sometimes a big effort for me. Not because I think they are an effort to deal with (if I did, why would I have them as friends??) But because I struggle to be in places that I don't feel in control. Not only that, I worry about not seeming in control. I worry that people will think my child is a feral, if he throws a tantrum. My child is NOT feral. He's a little boy who can't quite communicate what he wants so he's frustrated. Don't judge either of us! 
The silly thing is, I KNOW my friends don't judge me. I know they think my son is well behaved. But I still worry.
And the beautiful thing about my friends? They worry about me. They tell me when I'm being distant. They tell me when I'm being silly.
They listen to my fears. They know what I'm going through.

They NEVER make things Awkward. Because they know when to talk and when to just enjoy the silence (as much silence as we can have with 21 month olds).
So as much as I'm sometimes antisocial - they ALWAYS pull me back out.
They help remedy my anxiety and make me feel less awkward and more every day mum. With makes me less antisocial.

I love you guys.