Making a Call to a Stranger

     One of the worst things about anxiety, for me anyway, is that the things I need to do to get help for my anxiety only further my anxiety.  Leaving the house to meet with a counselor makes me anxious.  Emailing strangers, going through all of their possible responses in my head makes me anxious.  Talking to strangers on the phone makes me even more anxious.  There is no winning.
     Let me back up a bit.  On Tuesday I had a follow up meeting with the counselor I spoke to at the Counseling Center last week.  We'll call her Jane.  Due to high demand, the Counseling Center cannot offer weekly counseling sessions, so she had, at our earlier session, referred me to an external counselor, whom we'll call Dr. Smith, but unfortunately Dr. Smith did not have an availability that would work with my schedule.  Dr. Smith gave me a list of names for other counselors.
     I brought the list of names to Jane and she recommended an individual we'll call Dr. Jones.  I had been lucky to find an email address for Dr. Smith, so I had been able to contact her via email rather than by having to give her a phone call.  However, for Dr. Jones, I could only find a phone number.  I hate making phone calls to strangers.  The mere thought of doing so makes me feel physically ill.
     I procrastinated on calling Dr. Jones.  I told myself that since I'd had such a late appointment on Tuesday, I could hold off until Wednesday to make the call.  Wednesday rolls around and I send the email off to disability services to find out what steps I need to take to be potentially eligible for disability accommodations, should I need them.  I decided to wait until I'd heard back from disability services so I would be able to tell Dr. Jones what disability services was looking for.  There was some strategy there, but it also gave me an excuse not to deal with making that phone call.
     On Thursday I received the info I needed from disability services.  I should have made the phone call then, but I kept pushing it off, saying I'd do it after lunch or after I finished this or that part of my craft and so on.  Next thing I know, the day's over.
     It's really getting down to the wire now.  School starts in just over a week and I have another follow up appointment with my counselor in six days.  I wanted to ask Brian to make the phone call, like I do so often, but I knew I had to do it.
     It probably took me about 10 minutes of agonizing before I finally pressed the button.  My heart heart hammered as the phone rang.  I was sweating and my GI tract was not pleased.  It rang several times and then the answering machine came on.  Answering machines are great!  It was such a relief to hear that recording instead of having to interact with an actual human being.  I bumbled my way through the message.
     Even now, half an hour later, my anxiety hasn't calmed down completely.  It's partly because I know that there's more to come, that one of these days Dr. Smith is going to call me back and I'm going to have to talk to her over the phone.  But I made that initial call.