About Me

My name is Katherine Hughes.  In this past year I have been charged with the challenge of learning how to be a wife, a step-mother, and a mother…while I am still not sure what kind of adult I am and want to be.  

When I was 14 I had the opportunity to take a job in the service industry.  Despite my anxiety I took the job.  It occured to me that if I do not FORCE myself to be in environments full of unknown situations and people, that I would certainly lead into a life of reclusion.  Sophmore year, summer school, I was experiencing chest pains that traveled down my arm.  Junior in high school I dropped out - I could no longer enter the building.  I would get up, get ready, go to school, pull into the parking lot, and then pull back out.  I don’t remember the exact justification I used at the time, but I realized later in my life what I really suffered from – social anxiety, possibly even agoraphobia. 

I have always considered myself a functional agoraphobe because even though I had cripling anxiety I still had a great desire to be self sufficient and that meant going to work.  But this did not mean it was easy.  It would take me hours to prepare myself mentally and phsically for work.  And the thought of any social event – from coffee with a friend to a wedding or a run to the grocery store – would bring me to tears, my anxiety was so intense that I would cry out, “why don’t I know how to be a person” – the fact that I couldn’t get out of the house with out breakdowns made me feel broken.  As a result of this condition, I just stopped pretending that I was ever going to do anything.  Just go to work and come home.   I haven’t taken a risk in my life.  I have never taken a chance on something I believed in. 

But I want to change this.  I am young and have a great life and a beautiful and amazing family.  I am going to wake up and start living and enjoying life.  I have lots of interests and am going to start exploring them rather than just reading about them.