Geocaching with Agoraphobia

[Jamesflames]

I've just been signed off work for a couple of weeks as my anxiety has had a bit of a jump in the wrong direction, which always seems to shrink my 'safe zone' and make my agoraphobia a lot worse. I was trying to think of therapeutic activity for my time off and remembered an old hobby: geocaching.

This is a sort of treasure hunting activity where people have hidden little pots/boxes and you have to try to find them using gps and some clues. There are smartphone apps which make this particularly easy to access all the needed info while out and about. The caches are generally hidden in public areas and they seem to be all over the place.

I got my bike out and went to find three caches within a 10 min ride of home which is a bit of a challenging distance at the moment. I found two of the three and now feel exercised, entertained, and have pushed my limits a bit.

If anyone with agoraphobia feels like pushing their limits in a gentle way I can recommend having a look at your neighbourhood on : http://www.geocaching.com/
It's free to play and surprisingly fun. Also it's utterly inconsequential so if you feel too anxious and give up it doesn't matter at all.

I'm going to see how many I can find while off as this will require going further and in different directions every day. :)

[Greg17]

Hi JamesFlames,

Thanks for sharing, and what a fun idea!

In so much that I have read, the writers talk of rewarding yourself - and what better way to appeal to the pirate in all of us than to give us a reward incentive if we can push ourselves that little bit further!

[Adam**]

ive always wanted to get into this, maybe one day if i master this agrophobia rubbish.