Sometimes while watching a movie, reading a book, researching a person of interest, I am struck by a feeling of failure, a sense that I have accomplished little in my 33 years on Earth. Possibly I am the only person who cried when Reese Witherspoon was accepting her Oscar for Walk the Line and she quoted June Carter Cash, “I’m just trying to matter.” It hit me right in the chest. Do I matter?

I suppose I am rare in what I consider my personal accomplishments: Being able to take my daughter to school on the bus, walking to and from the store, taking my son to a doctor’s appointment. Others with Panic Disorder would know the constant anxiety that waits in between the actual panic attacks, the dread over having to leave the house, the feelings of failure.

When I must leave the house I am filled with an indescribable terror. My heart races, I can’t breathe properly, I fear I’ll faint. As I walk along I plunge one hand deep in my pocket clutching my little pill holder filled with Klonopin. The familiar sound the pills make as they shake around in the tiny metal box brings little comfort, but I haven’t left the house without them in thirteen years. I once joked that if I write my life story it would be called, “Have Klonopin. Will Travel.” The bitch about panic disorder is you never know when an attack will hit. If I do need to take a pill they take about 15 minutes to bring me back down to the land of calm. Sometimes I have to take two. Sometimes two doesn’t calm me down enough to end the fight or flight response. I can’t count the times I’ve walked away from situations because I feared people could look at me and know the turmoil going on inside. I feared that I’d faint, throw up, clutch my hair and scream, wet my pants. The list goes on. Not that I’ve ever done any of those things. But during the panic attack I just can’t be rational.

I haven’t always been this way. Once I was a young girl with dreams, hopes, and plans for the future. I thought marriage, college, career success and motherhood were waiting in the future, a few rolls of the dice away on the board game of my life. Never did I imagine viewing life through the windows, too fearful to go out and join in.

In between the days filled with a roller coaster ride of fear and the weeks of trying to pull myself out from under the heavy blankets of depression thrown over me I have had an eighteen year relationship with my man who has stuck by me for reasons I’ve never known, but often pondered. I have given birth twice, to my son in 1992 and my daughter in 1995. I have moved a few times, taken a few trips, held a few jobs, the last one ending a little over a year ago. I have attempted friendships and failed, not really being able to articulate why I can’t always just go for coffee, shop in a mall, and sit through a movie. Not really wanting to tell anyone anyway.

Despite my struggles with agoraphobia I still try to make plans, have goals, get up and try again the next day. For example, I never learned to drive, but it is on my goal list. I see the cars passing me by as I walk and I can’t imagine being in control of one of them. They seem to move so fast. I have always longed to go to college. I kept thinking I would wait until my children were older and they are 14 and 11 now. I have to believe that I can do it, or just jump in and try, I am not sure which.

For years I dreamed of being a writer. I wanted to help others, show them they’re not alone, lift them out of the depths of despair, make them laugh, cry, seethe, wonder, commiserate. I used to write on a regular basis but gave that up somehow a few years back. This online journal is my attempt to try again.

Focus. I must focus on the task at hand. Try not to let myself get too bogged down worrying about the future. Be brave. Remember to breathe. Get back on that bus, no matter how much it scares me. Live my life. The alternative is hardly living.

I am not trying to matter; I am just trying to make it.