Hi Everyone,
I hope you are all doing well and are having a happy start to the New Year!
I haven't been on the forums very much over the last few weeks so I just wanted to check in. I've been doing some traveling to visit family and haven't had internet access as regularly, plus have been busy with the holidays and other things, all of which have been presenting one challenge after another.
I took the train across the country (instead of flying), and have been attending a hockey tournament which has turned out to be a great daily exposure for me to work on sitting in crowds and being at big events. I still have a long way to go, but a lot of the tools I have learned here on the site as well as from my counselor have been helping me cope. I knew going into this month-long trip there would be some bumps in the road, and there have been, but I haven't let them de-rail me entirely, and I've given myself permission to take a Xanax on a couple of occasions when I felt like I was losing control.
There's still another couple weeks before I'm home again so I won't be posting too often, but I just wanted to share an update and let everyone know that I think of all of you often and am constantly putting to use the great advice you've given me. I'm treating the new year as a fresh start to my mind-set for tackling this anxiety, and I'm really going to focus on having a more positive attitude about my battle to work on overcoming this. I hope you are all able to do the same!
I look forward to catching up with you all in more detail later this month,
Teebs
