I used to be so anxious that I was afraid to leave the house.

I would have panic attacks at the drop of a hat.

Full-blown panic attacks.

I was so afraid that I couldn't be left alone for more than a few minutes at a time.

But last week, I got to do something that I've wanted to do my entire life.

It was great.

But when I was really struggling, when I was in the grips of anxiety and panic and fear and agoraphobia and OCD and depression, I thought this would be impossible. I did not think I'd ever be able to do this. And as it turns out, I was wrong. So a bit of a change of pace this week, I want to talk about some of my own personal experience in the hopes that it might provide a bit of encouragement. If you're struggling with anxiety right now and you are afraid that you will

never get better or never be able to do the things you really want to do, I'm here to tell you

that there's a really good chance that you're as wrong as I was. So let's get into it.

Back, get into it. Back in the day, and I mean for 25 years of my life on and off, I struggled with things

like panic disorder and agoraphobia and OCD and depression. I would have scary,

repetitive thoughts about death and existence and the nature of

reality. I would be fixated not only on my health and my death and my existence, but everybody

that I cared about in the world. I was having panic attacks all the time. I became super fixated

on how I felt. I was always worried about what my body was doing and what thoughts my mind was going to make. I couldn't experience regular emotions without them being morphed instantly into fear or panic. I couldn't leave my house. I couldn't be left alone. I couldn't do any of the things that I wanted or needed to do in my life, and it was pretty miserable.

Now, that was not every day for 25 years, but big giant chunks of my life were kind of taken

away from me because of this particular problem, which is really, unfortunately, very common

in the West. If you want to know the whole sordid story of the entire 25 years, I've actually written

a book called Anxiety Story, which you can check out from my website. It's completely free. Just

downloaded as a PDF or an audiobook and check it out. But the bottom line is that when I was

struggling so much with this particular problem, I thought I would never be able to do some of the

things that I do now. And I definitely

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