Originally Posted by
MyNameIsTerry
You can live without it but I think with anxiety you always have to be mindful of whether you are avoiding it out of fear or using an adaptive strategy. The latter is part of recovery strategy. The former is discouraged since it just leaves irrational fear in your subconscious.
I dealt with it reading plenty of articles in the newspapers every time I went into a supermarket. That, along with other work on my anxiety, meant I no longer found myself triggered.
But the challenges differ if you are on the spectrum, which I seem to recall you are, so the above may be less relevant to you.