I'm agoraphobic. I think I've always been a little bit scared of travelling, but it never stopped me until I became pregnant with my first child.

I've always lived to travel, I love to be abroad. I love to see how people live in different countries. I've never been drawn to the Far East, being more interested in Eastern Europe and the USA and Canada. But I loved to immerse myself in the cultures, get to know the people, live amongst them, be a foreigner.

Before I got married I did a lot of coach trips, travelling through Europe mostly, seeing the country in a way that you never could from a plane. Driving through little towns and villages on occasion was a real eye opener, especially before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. We'd drive through the night, and I would always stay awake talking to the driver whilst everyone else slept. I was scared he'd fall asleep at the wheel and so I needed to stay awake to make sure that the driver stayed awake!! I guess that was when my fears started.

I got married in 1995, moved to a village where the only roads out were country roads. I'd been brought up in a city, was comfortable with city living, and now I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. My fear of travelling gradually got worse and worse. I would make excuses for not wanting to go to a party or bowling or to visit someone who lived in a neighbouring village. Eventually I stopped making excuses after making the realisation that I was, in fact, agoraphobic. I didn't like seeing people, didn't like crowds. Didn't like leaving my home.

It got so bad that I was soon unable to take my small children to and from school. My husband had to drive them to school before going to work, and then leave early to pick them up, which meant he had to work from home in the evenings to catch up on the hours lost. Eventually this all got too much for him and he took time off work with depression. He never went back. Despite suffering from chronic depression, bordering on a nervous breakdown, he had to continue taking the children to and from school, to friends houses, to cubs, brownies, to the park and do all the shopping. I rarely left the house.

In 2005 my daughter was a bridesmaid for my husband's niece. She lived locally but was getting married a distance from the village, which meant that I would have to travel to the church. I was terrified, and it really spoilt the build up to the wedding for me. I panicked about it for months. I would happily have missed it if it wasn't for my daughter being a bridesmaid. I wanted to be there for her big day. The day finally arrived, and I was so nervous and sweating so much I thought I'd have to change my clothes! The taxi arrived. I clung on to the door handle for dear life, then we got to the church and I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the day. Even the drive to the reception and then home again, was fine. People were so pleased for me. They were sure I was now cured. But I wasn't. Nothing had changed. I'd just managed to get through one day, that was all, but I'm so happy that I did.

Later that year I discovered Google Earth. I was looking for the location of the "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" in Australia, and through that found the Google Earth Community. Like most new users of GE I posted my home and my childhood home and then discovered the Fun and Games Forum where people posted a screenshot of a roundabout for example, and you had to find the same location. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, but there were always visual clues, if you knew what to look for. I didn't know what to look for, but some patient players helped me and I was soon hooked. I was on the GE forum every day, sometimes for hours at a time. I came to the attention of the moderators and in 2006 was asked to become a fellow Moderator. Wow, what a privilege, to be a Moderator for Google on the Google Earth Forums. I have no technical knowledge, but I'm good at talking to people (which is strange, because I don't like to talk to people in real life!!), but on the forums I can do it in my own time, when I'm ready. There was a golden rule for the moderators that it had to be fun. We had no minimum hours to work, no minimum work to do, just what we wanted to be involved in when we wanted to. It was perfect.

Then in 2007 I was invited to Washington DC to meet with all the other moderators from around the world. All expenses paid for by Google. I was so excited. A chance to go travelling again, a thing that I had lived for before children!! At first I just didn't see how I could possibly do it. Not only was I terrified of travelling that far, but I didn't know if I could leave my husband to look after the children on his own for a whole week. He was more than able to do all the shopping and driving, but I always dealt with the emotional issues, made sure the kids got to school on time, kept appointments, went to bed and got up at a decent hour etc etc. So I said, thanks, but no thanks. But it hurt, I really wanted to go, and eventually we decided that, if there was still time for me to change my mind, then I'd tell Google that I would come to Washington. And I did. I went to Washington DC. Google paid for a taxi to take me to the airport, because I had panicked about how I would get there for an early morning check-in. One of the other moderators was also very anxious and he put in a good word for me, and the taxi was arranged (thank you Phil!!). I took loads of valium to cope with the drive to the airport, and once I was there I seemed to go back in time, and suddenly wasn't anxious any more…..though waiting in the queue to get through customs was uncomfortable and made me very anxious, but that was because I was surrounded by people all pressing forward in an attempt to get the line moving quicker!!

I was fine on the plane. Once we landed in DC I was like a different person. It was amazing, fantastic, wonderful. I had one "agoraphobic" moment the whole week, and that was again crowd related. We'd gone to watch the July 4th fireworks and when the crowd dispersed I started to feel anxious in the throng of people, but Michael Jones, creator of Google Earth, noticed my unease and helped me through!

I returned home at the end of the week and got on with my life - rarely leaving the house as usual. In 2008 the moderators met up in London. Google paid for a taxi again so that I didn't have to get anxious about how I was going to get to and from the hotel. In 2009 we flew to San Francisco, and stayed in Mountain View, home of the Googleplex. It was a fantastic holiday. 2010 we visited Boulder, Colorado. I hadn't wanted to go. I was finding it hard to get excited about more travel, and we had financial problems as my husband's benefit had been reduced whilst we prepared to appeal a decision that he wasn't entitled to it, and should be out job hunting. (We later won the appeal, but it was a very difficult and depressing time which made it harder for me to get excited about going on holiday.) I knew, though, that once I got there I would be fine, but the emotional trauma of mentally preparing for all the travel that was involved, was beginning to take its toll on me. But I went and it was possibly the very best of all the trips so far. I was at ease with my fellow moderators, considered them true friends instead of simply acquaintances, and Boulder was utterly beautiful.

Last year, 2011, we went to Rome, Italy. I took my son with me as I thought the airfare would be relatively cheap (boy was I wrong!!) but we had a great time. My son enjoyed it thoroughly and made some good friends. At 16 years old he got on incredibly well with all the adults there, and they seemed to like him too!! My son has ME/CFS and it was a huge gamble taking him along, but he assured me that the adrenaline would keep him going, and it seemed to. I think in some ways he did better than I did. I was unable to go on the final trip out to the country as the weather was so bad that I knew I would panic on the coach, so I stayed at the hotel. It's the first time that my anxieties have stopped me doing something on holiday. The downside of taking my son with me is that he relapsed when we returned home and eventually had to leave school. Would I do it again, knowing the outcome? Absolutely. It was a great life experience for him, his first trip abroad, first plane ride, first time seeing places he'd only ever dreamt of. So, yes, I would risk his education for the travel experience, but I wish wholeheartedly that he could have done both.

And now I'm preparing to fly out to Sydney, Australia. First I will fly to New Zealand to stay with one of the GE moderators. I've wanted to visit NZ for as long as I can remember, and it would be hard to be so near yet so far. Google agreed to let me fly direct to NZ and to pay the difference in airfare between there and Sydney. So I fly next Sunday, a week today and at this very moment I don't know if I will be getting on the plane.

My son is on a benefit called Employment Support Allowance. It means that he doesn't need to look for a job because of his illness. However, he has just had a medical to ascertain his ability to work, and we know without a doubt that he will be denied this benefit. It's the normal procedure right now and is a big source of worry for people with genuine illnesses. Even those with worse health than my son have had their benefit refused and then have to go through the appeal process. This is what we went through with my husband in 2010. The appeal was immediately granted - it was obvious to anyone with a brain that my husband was unable to work, but according to the medical assessor, because he wasn't rocking back and forth in his chair at the medical, he didn't have a mental health problem!

So, we're now waiting for the letter advising that his benefit has been refused and we will have to start the appeal process. This is a whole other story which I don't want to talk about here, but it's not going to be an easy ride. We have so little money coming in right now, and I feel so guilty about holding onto the money that I saved so hard since first hearing about this trip. I've already had to use some of it for food and household necessities. This money was going to be used to buy presents for my family for christmas. I might not be able to buy anything at all. Which seems so unfair. I get this great holiday but come home empty handed. I won't do that. I can't.

I'm diabetic. I had a diabetic check up a few weeks ago - all is fine, but my blood pressure was a bit high. So I went back to the surgery the following week to have it checked again. It was still a bit high. So last week I had a 24 hour blood pressure test and the results were "a bit high". On Friday I got a letter from my surgery asking me to come in and see my doctor to talk about this test. You only get asked to come and see the doctor if there is a problem. I have an appointment on Wednesday. In the meantime I'm terrified that he'll say I shouldn't travel. My imagination is going into overdrive. I'm sure the stress of it all is not helping my blood pressure!!

Our cats have fleas. That's fairly normal - cats get fleas. No big deal. We spent food money on buying special spray etc from the vet. The fleas are being very stubborn. We've sprayed the whole house, de-flea'd the cats twice and still we're finding the little buggers (the number is reducing, but they're still there) Why am I mentioning this? Because it's causing me so much stress. I just want to cry. To run away. I definitely don't want to deal with it, not now, not right now. There's so much else to worry about, I don't want to worry about fleas.

And finally, I have a phobia of ships (really big ones, tankers, cruise ships etc), big weird shaped buildings, wind farms, some bridges and other things which pop up unexpectedly. I'm so excited to be going to Sydney, but am terrified that I will have a panic attack at the harbour if there are cruise ships at the dock. And walking up to that most iconic of buildings, the Sydney Opera House, will I panic then? I feel uneasy just looking at them on Google Earth, how will I cope when I see them in real life? I've already had an anxiety attack about this. But how will I deal with it on the day? Will that anxiety still be present? Or will it be okay when I'm actually there in person? I don't know. And I'm scared that my fellow travellers will think I'm a total wimp for being scared of a big ship and a big building. Most of them just don't understand about the agoraphobia. They only see me when I'm okay. I only leave the house when I'm okay, so nobody ever sees me when I'm freaking out with terror about what might happen. Only my family. But they won't be with me to reassure me.

I need this break so much. I feel at breaking point with everything that's going on in my life (and I haven't even told you about what's happening with my daughter and her issues). My husband is having panic attacks at the thought of me being gone for 2 weeks. The guilt is huge. But I need to get away. I need this break for me. I'll be no good to my family if I carry on as I am. And maybe the stress will get so bad that the high blood pressure will be a real problem. I need this break, but I just don't know if I can take it.

Why have I written all this? Partly to get it off my chest. The guilt, and anxiety, the stress is overwhelming, and maybe by sharing some of that will dissipate. And because I want people to know what depression and agoraphobia and anxiety is like. You will only ever see me if I'm doing okay. You will only ever see a post from me on the internet if I'm okay. I rarely, if ever, post anything when I'm really depressed, when I most need the help and support. I don't like people to see my weaknesses because they only ever see me when I'm fine, I like to keep the illusion of normality going at all times. Sometimes I'll post about a problem, but mostly I keep all the fears and anxieties to myself. Maybe that's why my blood pressure is "a bit high"!!

Just don't tell me to snap out of it. Or that it'll all be okay. I know that last one to be true, but it doesn't help me now. Right now, I'm so stressed, so depressed, so miserable, so unhappy, so unsure of what to do. I need to prepare for this appeal for my son, but I don't even know where to start. I need to get rid of these flipping fleas, but they just won't budge. I need to keep calm so that my blood pressure will go down, but I'm just too overwhelmed for that to happen. I just want to go back to bed and stay there till next Sunday when I can get on the plane and do nothing for hours and hours and hours, and put all this behind me for two blissful weeks.