Today my manager asked me to call some people who've applied for jobs and arrange interviews with them. As I've mentioned before, using the phone is a major source of anxiety for me. But after the initial spike of panic I was, for some strange reason, gripped by foolish optimism. I thought that this could be good for me, that if I could do this I'd gain confidence and be able to use the phone from now on and that would open up more job prospects for me and I could feel good about myself and proud of my accomplishments.

Shame it didn't work out like that. I hope nobody looked into the office while I was pacing around with my hands over my head feeling like I was crawling out of my skin. That would have been difficult to explain.

I did manage to make the calls, which is something of an achievement I suppose. And I think I only sounded like a total idiot on two of them. Of course a lot of people didn't answer so I only actually spoke to a few. I should have left voice messages but I dread to think what panicky jibberish would have resulted if I had.

So... I faced my fears and came away feeling stupid and useless. Good job.

And tomorrow I'm supposed to try again to call the people I didn't get through to today. So I'm looking forward to an evening and night of ever increasing anxiety as that looms closer.