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Agoraphobia?

tilly22Contributor06 July 2021, 5:46 pm AEST

Agoraphobia?

Hi all,

Only just googled this because it's been an on-and-off thing for me, not sure if agoraphobia is it but seems to fit...

I feel like I've been doing quite a lot of positive things lately, focusing on eating better and doing short body scan meditations in the morning, not really feeling any more anxiety than usual (although I would say the base level is pretty much moderate and constant) BUT I'm just not "able" to leave the house? At all.

Also haven't felt able to respond to emails/contact people over the phone...it's just like an absolute "block" so have been avoiding it which is really frustrating because I'd like to communicate (and just be able to food shop) but yeah it's really just like an absolute sense of terror or like hitting a wall in terms of telling myself I'll do something but then just giving up and staying inside.

Not sure if anyone would have any tips or experience about how to make the push to leave my "safe zone", it's not like I thing something bad will happen once I'm out, it's just that getting there just doesn't seem to happen.

10 replies

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In response to: Agoraphobia?

Shaz51Senior Contributor06 July 2021, 6:11 pm AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

hello and welcome @tilly22

i will tag @NatureLover

In response to: Agoraphobia?

NatureLoverSenior Contributor06 July 2021, 6:46 pm AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Hi and welcome, @tilly22 🙂

I've been diagnosed with Agoraphobia. I don't have it severely, so I can leave the house, but can't go too far or stay out too long.

Can I ask if you have depression as well? Just because of the not wanting to communicate thing...

Can I also ask if you're in an area which has been locked down much? (Don't tell me the area, cos of the anonymity rules) The reason I ask is that sometimes lockdown can affect people in the way you described, not wanting to leave the house. That's what my psychologist told me.

For me, my fear in leaving the house is that something bad will happen while I'm out. So it's interesting that you don't have that fear.

But your sense of terror is interesting. Of course, we're not permitted to diagnose people here, as we're not doctors...do you have a trusted GP or counsellor that you could mention this to?

As for strategies to help with leaving the house...my psychologist reckons it's one of those things that improves with stretching yourself (a bit like Exposure Therapy). So for instance, choose a time of day you would be most likely to be able to face the supermarket, and psych yourself up (even if it takes a few days, or a few goes), and go food shopping for a few items (maybe with someone else, if that's easier), then reward yourself.

If this is not possible, then choose something easier...walking to the letterbox daily. Then after a week of that, walk down the street a little way, increasing it each time. Or drive a little way, if you prefer, increasing it slowly. Etc etc.

But I would definitely be talking to a GP or psychologist about it, as soon as you can, if I were you.

I'm happy to talk more with you about it too, as I don't know many other people with agoraphobia type feelings. 🙂

And thanks @Shaz51 for tagging me!

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

tilly22Contributor06 July 2021, 7:20 pm AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Hi @NatureLover

I'm not sure about depression to be honest - I have quite a lot of "things" that I haven't been seen for or had diagnosed (I definetly have anxiety, OCD and disordered eating but it's not something I've seen someone about) but I have been on antidepressants previously and not had a good response to them (can't absolutely say if it's related but I'd get a sort of anxious borderline angry high energy) so I've put them in the category of a kind of medication I'm not happy to try again.

(I do have a bipolar diagnosis though, so I have been on medication for that before, but not currently.)

I'm not currently in lockdown but I would still describe it as being " a lot", I suppose.

Seeing my GP next week for a mental health plan (to assess me for ASD) so I'll mention it - and it has happened before, following a panic attack when I was basically that bad that I couldn't even leave to go to the pharmacy to get the meds that were supposed to help me leave the house *sigh*

I've heard that after panic attacks you can get a subconscious fear of being outside/alone in case it happens again, so I guess maybe that's it but as far as I can tell it's more just a physical response - I just get cold hands and a rapid heart beat even thinking about leaving my "safe zone" (my house), weirdly I'm theoretically fine being in other "safe zones" though...

So for example, I didn't make it outside today so had to order in (which I don't like to do too much because I don't have that much money) but if I had a friend to visit (my last friend moved abroad) I'm pretty confident I'd be fine to uber to their house...it's just sort of the vast inbetween safe zones that I struggle with.

Also in between therapists but I'm hoping the ASD assessment will maybe look at other things going on and suggest things that could help even if it's a co-morbidity.

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

Jo-anneJoySenior Contributor06 July 2021, 10:55 pm AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Hey @tilly22 tilly22

I've been living with varying degrees of agoraphobia since 1989. Fundamentally, when you strike that 'invisible threshold' that you can't cross over to leave the house, it's about a loss of confidence and security in your own capacity to deal with the sensations. Your body has learned to bluff you, then your mind joins in with the 'fear thoughts' and before you know it, the sun is setting and you're down on yourself for another wasted day, and being chicken-s..t, and (insert your favourite self-criticism)....

Hypervigiliance is the mind-fck. Essentially, you need to learn how to talk yourself down off the ledge and develop strategies to ground yourself. Controlling your breathing is key. You enter a completely new relationship with your body and it is deeply unpleasant when in the grips of a panic attack and surrendering - saying "Bring it! Do your worst! I gotta be somewhere in 20 minutes!' is one way of calling it's bluff.

Your 'safe zones' shift - like sand bars - which can get a bit tricksy. Recovery isn't linear.

I highly recommend Peter Levine's books "Waking the Tiger" and "In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body releases Trauma and restores Goodness". He's done a few videos that you find on youTube and Facebook.

Art therapies are very effective for unfolding the origins of panic-anxiety that is intruding on your life and impacting on functionality; has you on the ropes.

When it comes to food : contact agencies such as Vinnies or your local council might have a crisis food cupboard and organise for hampers to be delivered as part of a contingency strategy.

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

Jo-anneJoySenior Contributor07 July 2021, 12:55 am AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Just for fun, I did a search on TROVE for "agoraphobia" and this was published on

21 March 1907...in The Evening News (Sydney)

IMPERFECT SANITY.

Perfect sanity seems to be a rare condition.

Among curious mental disorders that are more common than is usually supposed, are agoraphobia, or fear of open spaces like city squares and parks; and claustrophobia, the dread of closed spaces, such as street cars and elevators. Dr. Charles Mercier, of London, from large experience and observation, concludes that agoraphobia is a survival from our tree-living ancestors, who risked such dangers as the spring of a panther when exposed in the open.

In a singular case mentioned by this authority, the patient had a daughter whose marriage he opposed, and one night she eloped. The conflict of emotions aroused by the news of this so affected him that his malady disappeared. Thereafter he walked the widest streets, and crossed the longest bridges without a trace of dread, although in all other cases known, agoraphobia has been incurable.

* * *

I can definitely vouch for the experience of my fear vanishing when I am seriously PO'd.

Dark quirky humour is one of my coping mechanisms. I read recently that it's an early symptom of dementia. I look forward to forgetting I'm agoraphobic.

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

Jo-anneJoySenior Contributor07 July 2021, 1:37 am AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Still futzing about on TROVE.....a golden oldie is Dr Claire Weeke's with very simple advice that is often the best.

This is from a Women's Weekly issue on 20 July 1977

........Dr Weekes' new book "Agoraphobia: Simple Effective Treatment" makes it clear that

agoraphobia cuts across class lines and cultures. Rich women and poor women alike can suffer what Dr Weekes calls "the panic blast." Her formula for treating panic blasts is equally succinct:

Face —do not run away.

Accept - do not fight

Float - do not tense

Let time pass - do not be impatient

According to Dr Weekes, too many agoraphobics try to cope by thinking. "I must not let this get the better of me."

This, she says, is fighting, not accepting.

"Floating resembles accepting," she adds. "It means to go with the feelings, offering no tense resistance as one would if floating on calm water, letting the body move with the gentle undulation of the waves. It means loosening toward nervous sensations; letting the body go slack before

them, as willingly as possible."

Dr Weekes stresses the importance of memory in the cure of agoraphobia and in what might seem like a recurrence of it.

In her cassettes and journals, she relates her own memory of the smell of hot scones to her grandmother who baked them.

She suggests that when memory flashes through sight or smell and apparent symptoms of agoraphobia return, the patient should think, "It's only Grandma's scones."..........

Alrighty-now. Tomorrow I am going to be on the bus, with my mask on, and saying to myself: "I never knew either of my grandmother's. Maybe they didn't bake?"

Also from the same article which was the Catch-22 I had in 1990-1992:

All agoraphobics agree on one thing: their treatment is complicated by a catch more cruel than Catch 22. To get treatment they have to go out. Before they can go out, they have to have treatment. 

"Psychiatrists say, 'Come up and see me' more times than Mae West." says Margaret.

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

Jo-anneJoySenior Contributor07 July 2021, 2:32 am AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Visualization is also helpful with overcoming panic attacks.

The visualization offered in this article from 1914 is PRICELESS! It also comes from a paper that my grandmother and Scots great-grandmother would have read in their time....

MEMORIES OF THE PAST.

Yes, this is all true—things impressed upon the mind stuff a million years are still with us to
trouble and worry many men and women.
Every intelligent person knows that we have reached our present physical condition and shape
through a long process of evolution from the four-footed stage of existence. It is stated by scientists

that we have over eighty rudimentary organs in our body which were of use to us at one time, but about as much use to us now as a cart whip is to an automobile. We cannot cast off these useless remnants — not in many generations.
 
It is necessary to get these facts clearly in the mind so that more important facts regarding the rem-
mants left in man's memory may be appreciated, then we shall cease to worry about most of them. These are fears, superstitions, and peculiar psychic disturbances which make life scarcely worth living, for certain persons. Many of these troubles have been treated as diseases of the mind and nervous system, when really they are nothing but remnants of normal acts and feelings produced under a totally different mode of existence.
 
Take, for instance, the fear of snakes. This is a fearful state of anxiety and horror in some persons. I have known it to cause a state of hysteria lasting for some time. Now, when our ancestors were living among trees and their foliage, they had to keep a vigilant outlook for snakes even in the trees, for these slimy foes could climb after their prey. They would lie in wait along the gnarled branches and suddenly shoot out their sinuous necks and heads and grab the unwary.This acute fear of snakes is one of the memories left us as a reminder of our past experience.

There are people who cannot stay in open spaces without feeling uncomfortable, and a few really unable to do so at all on account of a fear which they cannot explain. This state of the mind we call agoraphobia, and to overcome it one has only to know its origin. In fact, most all of these unaccountable fears can be conquered by a knowledge of their cause and origin. Drugs and other medical treatment in ordinary cases do harm— just face the facts and laugh at your old ape grandmother when you picture her running and shrieking from branch to branch to escape

the snake, or perhaps rushing to the covering of the forest from an open field where she was searching for ground nuts.

The farther away from the shelter of dark woods the greater was the danger of our ancestors, so that, in open places, they were always timid, and fearful. They could not escape their enemies, sabre-toothed tigers and other beasts by running upright; their agility was at its height when climbing and swinging from tree to tree.

So, you see, that this fear of open places comes directly down and is nothing to worry about.—"London Budget."

* * *

Swing away, you crazy diamonds!!

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

NatureLoverSenior Contributor07 July 2021, 7:45 am AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Hi @tilly22 , that's interesting that you have OCD - what form does it take? I have it too - germophobia.

I'm glad you'll be talking to your GP about being too scared to leave the house. It would be good if you could see a therapist about it too. Good luck... 🙂

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

tilly22Contributor07 July 2021, 9:09 am AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

Hi @NatureLover

On the compulsive side I have obsessive compulsive spartanism, so like the opposite of a hoarder- I can't hold onto things (clothes, furniture, smalls items like pens, books, emails, even things given to me by passed family members) or obtain them to begin with (like gloves if it's cold..anything deemed "not essential") and on the obsessive side, which fuels it, I have an obsession with things being "perfect".

I do still buy things (hoping they'll be perfect), but sooner or later always decide to give it to charity because something's "wrong"- like a book might have a scratch on it or maybe I've decided it's not the right kind in some other way.

Basically, if I'm in my room, from when I wake up it's a constant looking at things and going "isitperfect????" on repeat in my head...sometimes I'm able to keep things as "markers"- so this isn't the perfect pen but it's ok because it's filling the spot of a future exactly perfect pen haha

I also have food based OCD, so similar to the fear of leaving the house, the severity fluctuates but there are things I will or won't be able to eat depending on whether they're "safe foods"- I've had various forms of EDs throughout the years, I think last I spoke to someone they called it Avoidant Restrictive but I would definitely say it's OCD or anxiety related, nothing to do with body perception or restricting any specific food group- it's very similar to the agoraphobia in that if it's really bad I will not feel able to have an apple or plain water but if I'm in a safe zone of eating with someone else I can and will have anything (I like).

I wouldn't have called it OCD before because it's not a fear of something happening if I don't do certain things- pretty sure I can trace the "perfectionism" to childhood trauma so I don't think it's ever been about avoiding something bad happening, it's more something I can "control" (but not really obviously) if I'm already anxious.

In response to: Re: Agoraphobia?

NatureLoverSenior Contributor08 July 2021, 7:31 am AEST

Re: Agoraphobia?

@tilly22 wrote:
pretty sure I can trace the "perfectionism" to childhood trauma

@tilly22 I'm sorry you had childhood trauma 🙂 (me too).

Your OCD sounds really interesting. Of course, I know how much of a burden it is, having OCD.

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