Where Do I Begin...

Hi. I'm an 18year old guy with some problems. After ignoring them for a while, i'm going to ask for help. I'll start with my smaller problem, since i'm not sure if the two are linked.

Firstly, i'm terrified of the phone. Really, really scared of it. Even people I know, like my partner, if they ring me it'll be a huge battle of wills to decide whether to pick it up. And it's stopped me from getting job interviews and things in the past because the idea of speaking to someone I don't know is awful. I had to ring my bank yesterday, and it took about half an hour of just staring at the phone before I physically forced myself to dial. Before I was even connected my hands were shaking like mad and I had trouble speaking to her because I couldn't catch my breath. My hands shook for about 20 minutes afterwards.

The other thing is a little more complicated. For a while now (maybe 2-3 years?) i've been feeling like i'm slowly growing less intelligent. I got fantastic grades for my writing back in school, and was hailed as a bit of a wonderkid. But things have gone rapidly downhill since then, my creative writing skills have all but vanished, and looking at the work I used to produce, I could never write that well. I find it difficult to hold a conversation at a normal pace, I stumble over words and switch around letters, or sometimes just start talking gibberish and have to start again, slowly. It's got to the point where I can't spontaneously speak to people. I can't respond to things people say to me unless I know they're going to say it. All I can do is smile or say 'yeah' no matter how relevant it is. I feel like i'm slowly losing my personality. All the time, I feel like i'm being pretentious and not true to myself, but i'm not sure who I am anymore. The only thing I ever worry about is how others percieve me, when I change my image, it's purely for other people, to make them like me and think i'm cool. I get so utterly paranoid it makes me want to cry. I feel like I have no sense of self, even as i'm writing this now I feel like i'm being pretentious. I'm so trapped in this permanent confusion, having no idea who I really am, what my personality's really like. Is this how normal teenagers feel?

There's more of the same, but I really can't put it into words, no matter ow hard I try. All I know is it'a making me so miserable. I just want to be me.

Oh, and I realise some of my symptoms may sound drug-related but i've only ever smoked dope once, and that was way after the symptoms started. I've never touched any other drug.

Can anyone atleast give me some idea where to look to start helping myself?

Thanks.