I suffered with regular panic attacks starting from the age of fifteen, and I never sought a diagnosis, but I was very socially anxious. I was severely bullied through high school and believe that the bullying caused this.

I couldn't make eye contact with anybody. When I was sixteen, I got a boyfriend (we've been together for six years now!) and it took me a couple of years to be comfortable making eye contact with him for longer than a second or so at a time. I've always been soft-spoken, but back then, I couldn't talk very loudly at all without panicking. In my first year of sixth form college, my tutor asked me to read aloud some of my writing, so I did. He gently asked me to speak up, and I tried, but my throat just... locked up? and I couldn't talk. I had to leave the room crying and in the middle of a panic attack.

There was a time where I couldn't go into a shop and buy something because the idea of it paralysed me with fear. My sixth form college had benches lining every corridor and I refused to sit on one because the idea of being so visible unnerved me, and I had the overwhelming anxious feeling that I was taking up space there and didn't belong. I couldn't make phone calls, and if I was walking down the street and saw somebody else walking towards me, I'd get so nervous about passing them that I'd have to cross over.

I went to counselling and was improving slowly but surely, but a group of friends I'd had from childhood to eighteen faded out contact with me because I was too shy to do anything and I think my anxiousness just made me a crappy friend in general. I got to university and I was still so anxious around people that I went the three whole years without making a single friend. I just didn't even try--I'd be friendly to people if they spoke to me, but otherwise, I would commute there, go to my lecture or my tutorial, then get the train home. In my second and third year, for whatever reason, I couldn't make myself go to lectures, so I'd skip them (since they had 50+ people in, attendance wasn't checked, though it was in tutorials, where your class would be about 6-10 students) and wander about the city centre instead, going into shops and exploring and sitting about with a book.

A turning point for me came at twenty-one, when I was due to graduate. I'd been very tempted not to go to my ceremony, but I found out that I'd be graduating with the highest degree grade you can get, and I guess my pride outweighed my nervousness, so I went and made myself walk across that stage--even if I was so nervous that I only managed half an hour of sleep beforehand.

From there, I just started getting better. I found a great group of friends and got my first job while I study for a Masters (retail, so I have to be bubbly and perky and confident!) It's been close to two years since my last panic attack and I'm genuinely happy now.