Am I Agoraphobic too?

I have a vacation planned for mid-October in which I will be flying to Florida and then taking a cruise around the many islands. As excited as I am, I can't help but be ridden with anxiety and nerves just thinking about it. Over the past few years I have noticed that I have become more and more of an introvert. I have drastically reduced the amount of times I go out on the weekends. More often than not I choose to stay at home and watch a movie or play video games. I have also noticed that my allergies have gotten a lot worse. This post nasal drip makes it difficult to breathe and there is always the fear that I will endure a severe asthma attack. Then there is the whole peanut allergy problem which aids my inherent distaste for social experiences.

Those two issues combined are a force to be reckoned with. I generally over-indulge myself in thoughts of the worst case scenario and the "what-ifs" of any situation. Even in the confines of my apartment I have periods of heightened anxiety as I start to convince myself that I can't breathe or I'm having an allergic reaction. I avoid restaurants at all cost unless I have deemed it safe, which requires that I have eaten there many times. I understand that life is basically passing me by while I spend all my time in defensive mode but I can't simply stop the mental gymnastics and pretend all is good. This is due to the fact that I do have physical problems which fuel these thoughts. I can't run anymore without having a bad asthma attack. I can't express how miserable it is not to be able to run, especially since I have always been very athletic.

I realize I haven't posted anything in almost a month. Since my last post I have been dealing with the lamictal and gradually upping the dose every week. As I said before, this doesn't really do that much. It may be assuaging the bi-polar but that is generally the least of my concerns at the moment. I've been trying to keep a happy face these past 3 weeks but it's all an act. I am generally miserable and live each day just to get to the next. I've since lost a good friend (for reasons not entirely clear to me) which hasn't helped my social life at all. Nevertheless, you can understand why I have been dragging my feet around my apartment.

A scary thought has been rattling around in my head the past few days. When I was a child I would occasionally have the type of dream where one would wake up and upon realizing they were having a bad dream, gave an exasperated exhalation of relief. I started to think about the dreams I had and realized my life right now, my day to day antics coupled with my job is the embodiment of those dreams. I feel like I could wake up at any moment and sever myself from that person. I often wonder at which point in my life I went wrong. Am I completely responsible for my own undoing or am I the result of unavoidable mistakes?

The last week or so I have been in what I would call a better-than-average mood. I concentrated on schoolwork and convinced myself that although I have some problems right now I could land on my feet and have a pretty good life. Today I feel as though I have fallen for a pipe dream. I simply cannot envision myself as the person I thought I would become. It seems something is taken from me on a regular basis. The life of a musician was once a goal for me but the life of an average person seems to be just as far away.