I'm in college and remember wishing that I could just be one of the other girls around me who seemed to have the composure that I've always wished I had. I have really bad anxiety and struggle with maintaining a composed, stable persona when I'm around other people my age. It's almost always girls my age who are put together and traditionally pretty because I was always treated like I didn't exist when I was around them in elementary school. I wanted to be them and to be friends with them because in my young mind, they were the face of what I wanted to be (which was mostly an internal thing i.e. not awkward and anxious, but it also included wanting to be desirable as a person). My family struggled financially and so I often felt like I was  less of a person because I wasn't able to be at the level that the other girls were. So now I'm 20 and my brain has generalized it to pretty girls my age and I get really, really bad anxiety when I have to be around them. Unfortunately, like 90% of my classmates for my major in college are pretty sorority girls, and even though I regularly talk to some of them in my classes, I still have terrible anxiety about it. Speaking in class? Shaky voice, heart pounding so much it moves my shirt, face gets hot, hands get shaky too. I know everyone generally hates public speaking but in these classes, I'm the only one who visibly has anxiety and it's humiliating. I've gone as far as leaving early, getting myself breakfast and a good parking spot, taking my time (i.e. I'm doing the self care like I should) but then skipped class because I couldn't stop panicking and felt like I was doing to faint from a lack of oxygen. The anticipation of possibly humiliating myself or being burdensome to someone just paralyzes my mind.

The whole reason I bring this all up is because I feel so alone and like no one else around me is going through anything remotely close to what I'm feeling. I know people get anxiety. But why do I sit there in my small, harmless class that doesn't even require us to speak and I constantly feel like I'm about to die. I counted today and had 3 panic attacks in my hour long class, one of them to the point of actually thinking I was going to faint. I've also developed a twitch in my eyebrows, which can cause me to unintentionally look disapproving or surprised. It's probably not too bad but I feel like I'm struggling in my own personal hell but it's nothing that a doctor can look at under a microscope. Sometimes I wish I was in a wheelchair but with pristine mental health because I don't think I'd be driven so close to these negative emotions that make me want to end it.

I know I'm smart and I have achieved a lot in my time in college. I regularly volunteer and enjoy doing things for other people. I am part of a research team and am interning at a great place. I am close to graduating and am doing more than what I need to do to get into grad schools and to apply to them. I am optimistic and try to be a good listener to people when they express problems they're having... Simultaneously, I feel like as a person, I am inadequate and offer nothing. I am more of a burden to people and I am actually just a child that people let tag along because they feel too bad to say no or I'm too incompetent to take the hint. I complain a lot and probably am seen as a negative person by the people around me. I constantly procrastinate doing my work for my classes. When I'm anxious, I isolate myself and become irritable and can't form a comprehensive sentence; instead, it's just blabbering several words trying to string together my thought into words. It also makes me feel self-conscious, so I won't look around at the people around me and don't initiate conversation because I feel like they'd judge me; I also want nothing to do with people when I get anxious. It's like I become antisocial. I look like a bitch but really I'm stuck in my mind in this self-loathing cycle while also feeling guilty because I'm not doing what I "should" i.e. being normal and talking to other ppl or in the very least looking friendly.

My sense of self is so unstable though that I feel like I am cheating life and the people around me