Me irl

Mhm

Your progress where good with that therapy ?

It was going okay I guess. Like I could call someone and talk to them for a few minutes, and I was working on answering calls and leaving voicemails, but my parents thought it was funny and made jokes about it so I stopped

Oh, too bad. You're dooing ok now ?

Yeah I'm just still an anxious mess when it comes to the phone

Great. I might try something like that one day

Good luck

Yo rte,I actually have trouble with phone calls too (can't even hold a 2 minute phone call with my sister) so what I do,is pretend I'm talking to an old person. Like an old,familiar,family friend. It's awkward,but it makes me feel less anxious. Maybe it'll work for you.

Oh I can call my parents and my family just fine. It's just people I don't know bc I dont know how they're going to react or if I'm saying the right thing

Same. But honestly just do the old person thing. Focus on being direct and clear,yet perky. Don't focus much on their reaction or doing the right thing. Don't let your mind get flooded with worry. Focus too much on old people to get worried.

If that works for you, then great, but my mind just kind of completely shuts down

Elaborate.

Like I feel like I can't breathe and I'm more focused on not passing out then what's coming out of my mouth

Ahh...okay,obvious question time: do you ever try taking deep breaths real quick before talking?

Yes.

Does it ever work?

When I can, I like to write down what I'm going to say ahead of time, because once I'm on the phone (with a stranger) I shut down and things get awkward

that's what i was working on. but then my parents would laugh at me for doing that.

Screw them. They don't matter.

But don't screw them, that could lead to other problems

Yeah don't really wanna do that