Social anxiety sucks. Full blown anxiety attacks are crippling. This is what I have been experiencing this week. I know I am a strange person and socially awkward. I am usually very quiet and rarely initiate conversation. This causes all kinds of problems when working among extroverts. One woman at work who disliked me since day one has been causing problems for me at work. This has resulted in many trips into the manager's office over her complaints against me.  Once she taunted me when I returned from a lunch break.  She said "Why is it that you never eat in the break room with the rest of us?" in a rather disgusted tone of voice. The reasoning is that  I simply prefer to get off the floor and walk outside and have some alone time.  Plus, I DESPISE eating in front of strangers. This break room is tiny and they are elbow to elbow. Sitting around laughing and cutting up while eating on top of each other. Hell no!  Not to mention that people look at your foo...

Well, today did not start out on a great note. I take 20 mg of Lexapro everyday.  Yesterday I forgot to take it. I realized it when I was already at work, so that means I had to wait until tonight to take it.  Also, last night I took a dose of generic Zyrtec that I bought at a Family Dollar store of all places. This morning at work, I was dizzy from the withdrawals. Yes, you miss one dose of that shit and you are in full fledged withdrawal.  Between the lack of Lexapro and the nasty side effects from the generic allergy pill, I was feeling like I would pass out from dizziness and nausea. I was wet from sweating and had to sit down. Then too much coffee made me jittery. I was just a mess. A mess. Luckily, I "stabilized" somewhere around 11 a.m...Still felt numb from withdrawal and trooped thru the day.

I woke up a little later than usual.  The alarm went off at 7 a.m. as usual. I must have turned it off and went back to sleep.  So, I roll out of bed around 7:30 and run to the shower. I'm feeling terribly nauseated. I try to brush my teeth in the shower and then it all just ripped. I start to vomit over and over. Mostly just dry heaving and spitting. It sometimes takes me a few hours after I wake up to "stabilize". I sit on my bed drinking an alka seltzer and then some iced tea.  I feel better and throw on my scrubs. Feed my cat, my 4 fish tanks, turn on the plant lights, and out the door. The humidity hits me like a wall when I walk outside and I start to profusely sweat. I sit in my truck waiting for the air to cool me off while wiping sweat off my face. This has become almost a normal routine anymore. This is the effect of taking 3 toxic pills everyday and one anti-depressant. I walk into work, check in at the nurse's station to let them know I am there, and the...

My original thought was to write an ebook about being a long term survivor and sell it on like Amazon Kindle or something. But anyways, I will blog my thoughts here. I am writing this blog to share my stories of 20 years of being HIV positive. Hopefully, other survivors will find this blog and relate and find a friend.

I was standing there in the little airport with a ticket in my hand bound back to my hometown. There was a group of college girls standing in a circle singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads". I stood there in a daze watching them. I will never forget that song. Only a few moments before I was in the college cafeteria eating lunch alone. When a nurse walked in and announced my name. I remember the walk to her office. Almost passing out. Knowing why she called me, but a million other reasons I could think of that she wouldn't say it. I was in nursing school in the job corps and back in those days, an HIV test was mandatory. She said "follow me". I sat there in front of 4 people at a desk and they told me that I had tested positive for HIV. I stared and even started to laugh hysterically. I joked that I would find any reason to get out of class. A counselor came in to talk with me, I was still in a daze. I remember her asking me if I liked Greg Louganis, who had ...