/lit/ - Literature

Through a mixture of cowardness, shyness, and indecisiveness, I've made decisions that placed me at the mercy of an indifferent bureaucracy in a country with no hope, putting my life and future at risk. For something like six years I've lived in constant anxiety. At night I could not sleep, and during the day I would be painfully restless. During that time, I've developed something of an addiction, which did not exactly help things. Each year I would manage to squeak by by the skin of my teeth, but the years of unceasing anxiety have etched themselves into my brain. Nowadays, just the prospect of receiving bad news is enough to induce a physically tangible bout of panic in me, and the thought of having to deal with state bureaucrats sends me into bitter despair. I'm just too shy for life. I'm too shy to live abroad and start all over (how do you ask for a job in a country where you don't know the language? How do you tell the barber to do your hair? These things are painful enough to do in my own native language), and I'm appalled by the idea of having to deal with my neurotic tics on foreign soil. I don't know if I'll ever go back to being somewhat normal. I just don't want to live in fear anymore. I want to face setbacks and challenges with something resembling fortitude.