Overcoming Anxiety

First things first. I suffer with anxiety. I have known that I suffer with anxiety since the age of 16, when I did my own research into what the hell was wrong with me. Back then I got incredibly nervous and panicky going into school, to the point where I would try and fake illnesses every other day just to get away from it. It didn't work because my mum was pretty strict with that sort of thing, so the best I could do was getting to go for some peace and quiet in the school sick bay. The worst times for me were when I had to present in front of a class, had to do any sort of reading out loud (where I would stammer over every single word to the point which it was painful to listen), and as I later found in sixth form, talking to boys - up until then I had gone to a girls school so didn't know this was a problem.
If you haven't experienced anxiety, the best comparison I have come across is the fear you would get if you came face to face with a hungry tiger that was about to attack you, rationally you would panic and prepare to run away or defend yourself (the fight or flight response which is widely known in psychology), that would be normal. But in the case of anxiety, there is no tiger. The thing you are fearing is not real, yet the fear itself is completely real.
At age 17 I was put on medication by a doctor who suggested this would be a short term solution because he thought that after exams passed, so would my anxiety. I also started seeing counsellors, who helped to an extent, but they were much more interested in my depression than my anxiety, but truth be told my depression had stemmed from anxiety, from the utter hopelessness I felt of dealing with every day situations and day to day life. After my exams my anxiety carried on as prominent as ever, as I had expected. I was put on antidepressants, dropped out of sixth form and carried on with counselling. Up to that point I hadn't been completely honest about my anxiety, I couldn't even bring myself to explain that I got embarrassed by boys, I found the whole thing just so ridiculous that I didn't want anyone to know what my anxiety was from. It was only when I started seeing my most recent counsellor at 18 called Megan, who I was honest with, that I started to realise that the whole boy-phobia thing wasn't absolutely insane. She didn't treat me like my anxieties were ridiculous, and maybe other people wouldn't either.
After that I started telling people about my anxiety in a lighthearted way, shrugging it off as something that I had, something that happened and was just a part of me. I realised that once people knew, I found it a lot easier to be around them. They could understand to some extent what was happening to me, so wouldn't judge me, so I had no reason to get anxious in the first place. Obviously this didn't work all the time, but it certainly helped a lot.
Another thing my silly mind seemed to do (and still does) is build up associations with people and places. If I panic once around a person, my mind will think I'm going to do the same every single time I see them, and as a self fulfilling prophecy, I then do. I haven't got control over this yet, but rather just tell my mind to shut up when I start thinking these things and try to make myself be around this person more instead of avoiding them, as the more I see this person, the easier it is to overcome.
I still very much have anxiety, I have panicked and freaked out so many times in the last month alone, but that's okay, it's nothing new, I am used to it. It wasn't the first time and it most certainly won't be the last. I'm okay with my worry bugs, and I embrace them as a part of me which is something I couldn't do until recently.