Beyond Avoidance

What should you have done this year but didn't because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)
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Oh boy. Avoidance. Something I'm really really good at. I am a class A procrastinator. I will, and do, put off anything and everything for just about any reason I can possibly come up with. Especially things that scare, worry, or distress me in some way.

Just about everything in my personal life gets put off until the last minute, waiting until I simply cannot ignore it anymore before I take action on it. It's beyond unhealthy for me to do, I know, because that whole time I'm putting it off I'm still worrying about it.

For evidentiary perusal:

Dental issues -- My teeth are a mess. I grind them, clench my jaw, both awake and asleep. I've ground down so much of them that eventually I'm just going to have to have them all pulled, and get fake ones. No implants for me, as they can't stand up to the pressure I put on my teeth. As a result of grinding them down the way I do, some have broken. One, in particular broke rather badly. I didn't see a dentist for it. If I had, it would probably have just been capped, and been fine. But I put it off, thinking "oh, it doesn't hurt, it'll be fine". Well, it abscessed. So, instead of a capped tooth, I've a blank spot in my jaw where the tooth used to be, and a dental bill about 3x what I would have paid for the cap. Did I learn from that, and get the rest of the broken ones fixed? Nooooo of course not. I justify myself out of it saying how I don't have the cash, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I'm terrified of dentists. Absolutely and completely phobic. I won't even let another person come near me with a toothpick for crissakes, let alone those scary looking dental tools, it's that complete of a phobia.

Getting another job -- Yes, technically I have a job. I'm drastically underemployed though. I need more income. Desperately. And I've been fit to go back to work for over a year now. But I haven't even seriously started looking. I glance at classified ads, or browse careerbuilder, or idly scroll through craigslist every so often. I've even dug out my resume and brainstormed a bit about how I need to rewrite it. Have I actually done anything though? Nope. Because part of me is scared to death of going out and getting a job and finding out that I hate it, or that I suck at it, or that having to keep to a regular schedule like that will fuck over the tenuous hold on my sanity that I've barely managed to maintain, or... I don't even know what else. I gloss this over, so I'm sure the response to reading this is a "just suck it up and try" kind of response. But when I start to write that resume, as I've done about 15 times so far, something akin to blind terror washes over me, and I wind up running away from it as fast as I can (sometimes almost literally).

Hell, even simple things like leaving the house to go to the store, trying to get back in the car to learn to drive again, doing just about anything that might require me to interact with "people" freaks me out. And I do mean that in as much of a melodramatic way as possible -- my own reactions to these things, things that other people do with no problem (going to the bank, calling up the cable company to change a subscription, going out to dinner) leave me feeling rather disgusted with myself. What in blue hell, I wonder, is wrong with me that I get SO anxious and scared? Especially since there are times that these things aren't a problem for me at all, and I can do them without even thinking about it. And I have no idea what makes one instance different from another. No clue at all.

So. Bonus question. Will I do these things that I struggle so hard to not be afraid of? Some of them I don't have a choice about. I will, eventually, do them. I have to go to the store at least sometimes, so I take my iPod and blare whatever loud enough to try and make me not go all claustrophobic in the crowds. I have to get another job. We'll run outta money eventually (eventually? hah we already have, really), and the only thing to do will be to go to work. Teeth? Well, if I wait long enough pain will make the decision for me.

Thing is, I need an outside motivator. Left to my own devices, I would find ways around needing these things (yeah, even income, I can be that stubborn). And that outside motivator works best when it's a slow, gentle, persistent coaxing putting me at ease while remaining firm. Well, or if everything blows up and I get so caught up running damage control that I can ignore how scared I am. But I'd really rather not have to wait for the second option -- things are so much more messy that way. I don't have an outside motivator though and I'm not sure how to go about getting one.

Am I the only one who has this sort of trouble? I feel like I am...