GMan,
You're welcome. Hope you like it as much as I did.
GMan & NightOwl,
The habit of standing up for yourself in a calm way is quite a change of behavior, but once you can do it, your anxiety really starts to go down in a lot of situations, because you don't have to guard against people's behavior and events constantly.
When I got to the part of the program about the assertive verses aggressive behavior, I could have been their poster child for what not to do. I really believed that my intense anger was necessary to deal with people, but then I realized that it was actually making my behavior way over the top. I used to either seethe silently against people or explode, there was no middle ground. Anxiety just feeds off these extremes. If you can just stand up for yourself immediately when something happens that isn't OK with you, it never has to get to the super drama. I did find it a little hard to let go of the drama and overreacting, it was just a part of who I had become. Change can be hard, but also great.
Rachel