Reddit mentions of Anxiety and Avoidance: A Universal Treatment for Anxiety, Panic, and Fear

This was written by Dr. David Burns, who is a really great person for teaching people how to apply cognitive behavioral therapy to themselves through books, he did a main work called "Feeling Good" which was general CBT, mostly for depression. This one is a work specifically for anxiety, since you mentioned struggling with that: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GCFVV0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

This one is kind of a holistic approach which summarizes what we understand about how anxiety works and how it is kept in place, and how to overcome it: https://www.amazon.com/Anxiety-Avoidance-Universal-Treatment-Panic-ebook/dp/B00E5XB7NW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1498262710&sr=1-1&

Much of the gist of these is that avoiding fear is the primary culprit here. You have to experience it. Put yourself in the situations which you feel awkward and afraid and learn to weather the storm and remain.

Another complementary thing here is to learn how to exercise mindfulness, the concept from Buddhist meditation. You learn to self observe what arises in your mind in a relatively detached way, and this helps to change how you react or your attitude toward situations.

There's a whole wealth of research which shows that near total fear extinction is possible the more you confront it and learn how to reappraise your automatic reactions and cognitions.

It's very experiential though, you have to go through the process like someone overcoming a spider phobia by touching spiders. The theory in those books will give you the framework for how it is done though.

Sounds like you are experiencing a panic attack. About a third of the population will experience one in their lifetime and it's not dangerous at all.

If this keeps happening, read Avoidance and Anxiety by M. Thompkins