Avoidance and Anxiety

i've been saying forever that i need to email my profs, my department head in particular. but i haven't been able to bring myself to do that yet. i still don't know if i'm ready, but yesterday i opened my school email account...as far as i'm concerned that was step one. and as my therapist says, you have to celebrate the little victories. problem is once i'd gotten it open i angsted about it all day. worked myself up so badly that i had an anxiety attack that lasted for hours and finally bumped itself up to the kind of panic attack where you think you're dying. i couldn't breathe, my heart was pounding so hard that my chest still hurts. i blacked out even. i haven't had one like that in a long long time. i really wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  i doubled my dose of anxiety meds and finally got some sleep. but chest is achy today, but not too bad. i actually opened my inbox today, sure there were notes from my profs berating me for being lazy, for missing classes, for losing my focus, i don't know i made it into this big thing in my head. there was only one, as far as i can tell--i didn't open it just scanned the viewer, it's a note of concern from my department head. i really do have to answer today though. so...progress? i opened my email. and doesn't that sound pathetic. granted i'm still shaky in the aftermath, but maybe this afternoon i'll actually be able to get to it. i also finally called my aunt back, she wants us to have thanksgiving with her and who knows who else. luckily my sister has to work the next morning so we can't stay longer than supper. but with my aunt and my mother it's always been a competition over who's done better and who has more and who's children turned out better. my mother was winning on the children front since not only are there more of us, but the only reason my cousin jay (my aunt's only child) got into law school was beause my uncle is a dean at the university and pulled hella strings so his LSAT scores would be overlooked.  then my cousin transferred to a school in NYC and lived in manhattan (and damn i wish my parents had that kind of money. we are very heart rich and highly cash poor) so my aunt and uncle paid for his apt, a new car suitable to city driving, etc, etc, etc...my cousin dropped out and disappeared. when he resurfaced turned out he'd met this woman online 15 years his senior and she'd convinced him to move to arkansas and care for her and her 5 children...hrmmmm....my aunt was of course livid and while my mother made all the right sympathetic noises, you could see the gleam of triumph in her eye every time jay's elopement came into conversation. my aunt tried to do the same thing when one of my younger brothers eloped, but it didn't work out so well since my sister in law's family is massively loaded and she's only 4 years older than him.  the game of one-upmanship will be in full force at thanksgiving and after driving 3 hours to get there i am so not looking forward to any of it...