After living with social anxiety for a number of years, which included vomiting constantly around any new boyfriend that I had...

I found him.

I kissed him. I know that sounds like a walk in the park to most of you, but I am an 18 year old girl who was too shy to ever kiss anyone and extremely positive that I was incapable of such a thing or that I would do it wrong. I am still not even sure that I'm doing it right but I tried and he seems to enjoy it. After 4 months, I kissed him.

I cuddled with him. It started with just his arm, we weren't together at the time and I didn't want to make things weird, so I pretended to be asleep to grab his arm and cuddle with it after he fell asleep watching a movie. I know, his ARM, dumb right? We laugh about that today. But you're talking about a girl who would vomit and violently shake just sitting next to a boy, cuddling with his arm! Now we cuddle all the time.

I slept with him. No not sex, SLEPT. As in, for once around a boy I fell asleep. Now I fall asleep with him all the time, and last night for the first time, I fell asleep with my head on his lap. That's the closest I've ever been to a boy's "down there" area and felt safe. Felt secure. Felt comfortable.

The thought of sex has always been something my body has wanted but my mind was too busy worrying about what could go wrong, so I feared those thoughts. He has pushed my fears away. I have taken that next step in my life. I am now on birth control and I am EXCITED not fearful to take this big step in my life with him.

I have tried for years to be able to do these things and I never could, until I found him. Now my hopes and dreams have changed, I am a happier person and I have confidence in myself that I never even knew I didn't have.

If you suffer from anxiety, whether it is social like mine or generalized, please don't give up. I know that you feel like there is no one who can change your anxiety or your fears. I know what that feels like. I've tried every anxiety medication in the book and still nothing helped. If you can wait, just hold on a little bit longer, you will find the cure to yours. And it may not be a person. It may be a place, or a job, or a car. Your cure will come. Mine is a person, and that person feels like home.