Ughh! Anxiety about going back to school this morning!

[missj]

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[paulinek]

Good luck! I think you have a good plan with the water and peppermint tea etc, from personal experience it is so important to push yourself to go to your classes as the more you go and nothing bad happens the more it will reinforce the positive aspects of going rather than not going in, then feeling like a loser for staying at home, especially when nothing bad happens there either and you look back on the day and think damn, i could have gone after all! I used to miss out on so many things in life due to being too scared to go and I would sit at home, not be ill then kick myself for not going. The more you do, in small steps, the more you will achieve in the long run.

A therapist once said to me (in response to my feeling uncomfortable in situations where i perceived i was "trapped" such as theatres,restaurants supermarket queues, at work etc) is that no matter where you are or what you are doing (with the exceptions of aircraft and prison lol) you can always leave, you are always in complete control and that if you are in the company of people who don't know about the emet there's loads of excuses you can use that people won't question such as saying you need some air for a headache/migraine/feel a bit faint/dizzy/hot/lightheaded etc and she was right and as soon as i told myself i was free to leave any situation i was in, it relieved my anxiety alot. She also gave ma tip, that if i felt panic rising, to say to myself ok if i still feel like this in 5 minutes then i will leave and 9 times out of 10 by the time the 5 minutes was up i was fine, or at least ok enough to extend it by another 5 minutes and so on (you could make that timescale shorter or longer) and since using that method i have never fled anywhere in a panic since.

Let us know how you got on!