My biggest trigger is necessary in life. Is there anything I can do?

[mollyfin]

Extremely long story short: I have to go back to college eventually, preferably soon. Classrooms are my biggest anxiety trigger - I can't stand being around a lot of people in an enclosed space especially when I have to keep still. I've been trying to deal with this for years and all my doctor has ever offered me is "well start with one class, then take more." It doesn't help. It gets worse and worse every semester. I haven't been back in years because I can't face it. But I need to go back. I have no idea how I'm supposed to get through it. Whenever I have even one class to attend I spend every moment of life not in that class dreading having to go back. My mother makes it worse by constantly nagging at me about it and refusing to even try to understand how awful it is for me. I can't go on like this, but I know I need to finish school. I don't know what to do.

[hyppiegirl]

ok rather than looking at it as a whole lets try to break it down into smaller pieces. I know I sound like a 12 step program but I when my anxiety is bad I take it 15 minutes at a time. So try this sign up for 1 class and make a goal of I can sit in this class for 15 minutes(you can do anything for 15 minutes), talk to the instructor they will be more understanding than you think see if you can leave a recorder so you do not miss the rest of the lecture. Go back after everyone is gone and get your recoder. the next day you say to yourself I have to sit here for 20 minutes.

[Maxine1001]

I agree with what hyppiegirl said, im back at school now after 6 years out of it doing a maths course, in the first class i had a full blown panic attack in the first hour, after that the school support team sat me down and asked if there was anything they could do to help, at the moment what im finding helpful is arriving at the class first when no-one else is there and leaving in the break (break is about 50mins into class) the teacher posts the rest of the class on the school forum so i dont miss anything

Is there anyone that you trust and who understands at the school you can talk to to explain your situation? I mean school support, or even talking to your teacher about it may help, you would be suprised how helpful they can be.