Hi to all, I'm new to the forum but I've been lurking for a while. Basically, I've suffered from anxiety since 1991 and I can pretty much trace back where it started to an over-enthusiastic night in a nightclub.
Anyway, ever since then I've suffered from very bad anxiety and panic attacks. My worst ever spell to date was at university about ten years ago where for almost two years I was in constant fear of committing suicide because I was worried about how I was going to cope during the finals. Suicide itself was never a real possibility except in my mind I was going to do everything to avoid it. Suicide just arrived as an intrusive thought one day and never disappeared. I made it through the finals Ok (despite the worry) and I then escaped back to my parents house on the day of my last exam to live with them when I really should have stayed and partied! After that, I gradually drifted into a career in IT and was reasonably successful and I bought myself a nice house about six miles from my parents and there I stayed for five years.
During the time after uni, at various points, panic attacks have stopped me from flying, from driving on motorways, from going on trains, from going over bridges, from going on holiday with my (then) girlfriend, from taking a dream job in the south of France, from speaking in public, Y2K doom etc etc. All in all, on countless occasions, anxiety has really intruded and stopped me from doing lots of things that I'd otherwise love to have done. I've spent time with a psychologist during this time to get to the bottom of it but the underlying intrusive thoughts and anxiety has never gone away.
Eventually, about three years ago, I finally ended up getting on a plane again and went with my parents to a house they'd bought in the south of Spain near Granada. I'd not been abroad for several years at that time and I immediately fell in love with the Spanish lifestyle and culture and on that holiday resolved to myself to quit my job and basically sell up and live a dream life in Spain as I'd had enough of the rat-race.
Roll forward three years...
Since that holiday three years ago, I've quit my job to become self-employed. I then sold my car in 2005 and rented out my house to enable me to have a safety net to return to if Spain didn't work out. Only, I bottled it at the last moment and ended up working in the UK rather than going to Spain and staying at my parents while my tenant was in my house!
The tenant's lease ended in April and he moved out and since then I've been redecorating the property with the intention of selling it and then finally making the break to Spain.
I'm now a couple of days from finishing decorating and notifying the estate agent. Only, I'm seeing myself become anxious again and panic-stricken and worried about how I'm going to cope in Spain etc etc. I know I'm on the cusp of something great happenning but I'm really stuggling to find that confidence to go the extra mile. I still get the suicidal compulsive thoughts and I'm worried they will never leave me and being so far away in Spain without a support network is quite a big risk for me to take. I've always been really driven to succeed in everything I do but feel really vulnerable. It seems a hell of a risk for me personally to take but if I don't do it, I don't want to live with the feeling of regret. Better to live a full and soaring life than feel helpless that you couldn't do something.
One part says 'yes' - go for it! But, my anxious self is just going into overdrive. The question is, what would you guys do and what sort of safety network could I put in place to feel safer?
Sorry for the long post and if it seems trivial but this decision has been driving me mad for a long time.
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It says everything about why I should do this (although it's easier said than done!) 
