any tips for overcoming severe avoidance and anxiety?

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It has become increasingly difficult for me to communicate with the very few people outside my "comfort zone" and the difficulty just keeps turning in upon itself and making things worse. It is hard to explain all of the specific things I am having trouble with...but there are tasks that I can't seem to help but avoid. People I cannot speak to without sounding rude...People I cannot speak to at all....and it all has just been getting worse. I feel weak and cowardly...at the same time I dread the possible outcomes of my feeble attempts to overcome these fears...One such fear is my landlady...that fear has spread to my avoidance of ever going to my own apartment....fear of speaking to my roommate....horrible trouble whenever people need things from me...it is all only getting worse...and the shame I have in the fear I have only doubles back and makes the fear and avoidance worse....I need to find a way to overcome this stuff...I am in my late 30s I was much more capable, it seems, when I was younger....

I shut down and turn in, but it seems I start out again at some point.

I have a good decade on you, I think, and I don't know if it is fatigue with general body changes that makes it worse. It's just a long haul.

What has helped me is to just do and think 'small steps'. I look at it as a medicine I don't want to take but I know I have to, or at least I sort out the stuff I 'have to' from the stuff I 'don't have to' and do the 'have tos'. I will swear and fight with myself and do one thing. That is one thing I can put behind me. Maybe it is a phone call I have been putting off for anxiety. But, then it is done. That's a big accomplishment in a day. I find pushing myself to talk to people if I don't really have to sets me back farther. Sometimes I just give myself permission to not talk to anyone outside of the bare necessities. I have to do that. When I feel a little better, I will go to the store or something. I pace myself and plan my interactions. Too many too close together means I am headed for trouble. Maybe it will help to just give yourself 'permission'? And credit for every little step you manage. (And trust me, I can give advice but this is the 'ideal' stuff that can work for me. It is an ongoing imperfect system, but it is 'something', and 'something' that I hope might give someone like you an inch of relief.)

I am so sorry you feel weak and cowardly because what you are living with takes a great deal of strength and courage. That is you: strength and courage - even if you can't see it because you feel so miserable. I look at what you wrote and think: wow, you gotta be tough to live with this stuff.

Best always - LM

good advice from logicalmum.

often the anticipation of something is worse than the thing itself

treat interactions as virtual, as if you doing them in on a video game, even though you are in them

and stop demanding too much; that each interaction be good, that everyone like yu etc. use REBT

I wish there was a simple answer. Life is difficult and it takes courage to face our issues. In public, I try to wear a mask that is more acceptable to the people around me.