No patients were affected by this modification, system was purchased in used/discarded condition from an auction and would have been thrown out otherwise, the wrist pressure controller was broken.
I have autism and social anxiety. It wasn’t this bad a few years ago. I guess not interacting frequently in person for a while (in college, tend to stay by myself besides classes) has atrophied my skills.
It’s to the point where making a phone call to follow up on job applications, leaving to get a haircut, even leaving my dorm/campus feels impossible. I can’t. I want to cry just thinking about ending up in a new situation. I’m terrified of making a fool of myself. I don’t have a “social script” or know what to do or expect for any of this. I can’t bring myself to call. I just pace and pull on my hair and cry. Doing anything “adult” feels just so impossible and scary. I’m in my twenties so admitting that I am so nonfunctional and “weak” is embarrassing as fuck. I should be better by now but I’m not?
I can function when I know people and I know the environment like my classes and campus and professors but when it’s unknown I just can’t.
I don’t think at this point in this state I’d be able to function. I can’t even go out for a haircut or or go to a restaurant or pick up my prescriptions or do literally anything not inside my home that I want to do because it’s just too much. I worry I’m going to become a shut-in that won’t ever go anywhere in life. It’s fucking crippling. I don’t have panic attacks but I shut down and can’t speak when I get really overwhelmed and I did that in a job interview and they ended it 6 minutes in and told me to leave. I know it will happen again. I can’t handle embarrassing myself like that again it’s just too much.
Doing anything I’ve never done before is just impossible. I don’t know how people do this. Every time I think about things I can’t do it gets worse and worse because there’s so much I’ll have to do on my own and I just can’t handle it.
I’m trying to just hold it together but the more responsibilities I get the worse my anxiety gets. I don’t know how I let it get this bad, two years ago I could have done this shit but now I can’t even think about leaving my “safety.”
Has anyone recovered from this? How?