A new start.

I've recently started Cognitive Behavioural Therapy due to my social anxiety issues. This was started by me crying at my doctor, a lot, about the fact I have no friends and had a panic attack when I tried to make some. She referred me to my area's mental health service, I then proceeded to cry a lot at the person on the phone, twice. The second time the mental health worker said I was suitable to CBT, and that I had to go to a group induction to IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) but that I wouldn't need to talk to anyone while I was there. It turned out to be a group question and answer session that I sat through in stony silence, sweating, blushing and trying not to cry. Horrific, but I couldn't leave because then I wouldn't get CBT.
Finally, I came of the waiting list, unsurprisingly the first session consisted a lot of my crying while my nice therapist asked lots of question about my past and social difficulties. Surprisingly, on my second session, about what CBT is, I did not cry at all. Clearly already I am making progress. My first proper session will be in two weeks, and I have homework to do for it, which I am actually finding strangely exciting. Next week I have a doctor's appointment where I have to tell her I haven't been taking the anti-depressants she prescribed because they made me really nauseous, I'm assuming she won't mind though.
So, basically, I seem to be spending half of my life at the doctor's or hospital at the moment, luckily my work don't mind and therapy is one of the things I am not embarrassed about, for some reason. In fact, I am highly motivated about it, though it took me over three years to get to the point something had to be done, if I had kept on the way I had been going I could have easily ended up house-bound.
I don't know if my lack of friends is responsible for my social anxiety or my social anxiety is the reason for my lack of friends. Both possibly. The upshot is that I started falling out of contact with people after uni, even those friends I was living with, not helped by a pretty major bout of depression where I wanted everyone else around me to feel as bad as I did. They didn't, but a lot of them did stop being friends with me. I met my boyfriend, stopped socialising with anyone else, and forgot how to talk to new people. Possibly the fact I was, and am, so happy with my boyfriend, made me feel like I didn't need anyone else.
I carried on without friends, not really minding, for a while, though it was lonely, I missed talking to girls. In the last year I have minded more and more, and I have tried to talk to people, but been too scared and embarrassed to. Some days almost everything seems too scary. I ran out of a dance class I'd been longing to go to after two minutes, crying, hyperventilating and slightly hyspterical. Nothing has ever activated my flight or fight responce so much, the adrenaline was horrible and I was sent home from worl the next day because I was still a total wreck. So I went to the doctor.
And now I'm here. I'm not very good at talking to people, especially strangers, especially groups, but I can write. So, I will write how I'm feeling and how my therapy is going but also I will write about my quest to find people to socialise with, online or offline. It'll be one of those dating blogs, but with more introspection.