Standing Outside the Pub Window in the Cold, Too Terrified to Open the Door

Dear Delyara, I walked all the way to the high street tonight to meet some former colleagues for a drink, but when I got outside the pub and looked through the glass at the crowded, noisy room, my chest went completely tight. I could see them laughing, holding pints, moving between groups with absolute, casual ease. Suddenly, a wave of intense panic hit me—the absolute certainty that if I walked in, I would say the wrong thing, look awkward, and expose myself as a social failure. I stood on the pavement for five minutes while the rain soaked through my coat, my hand completely frozen on the door handle, before I finally turned around and walked back to the station alone. I am thirty-eight years old, and I am still entirely at the mercy of a brain that tells me I don't belong in the room.