Question for people who stay where they are (instead of choosing flight)

[Ditapage]

I usually run from wherever I'm panicking thus reinforcing the idea my car and my house are "safe." A year of that led to the agoraphobia I have now.

I'm starting to venture out and trying to stay where I am when I start panicking. Today I was in a department store. Walking in I started feeling anxious. Wandering around I felt increasingly anxious. I never actually had an "attack" though so the entire time was just this horrible anxious feeling and sense of impending doom. I would feel some relief then it would all start up again. I tried to distract myself picking out clothes and then I went to the change rooms and my head was full of pressure, eyes felt like they would bulge out of my skull, thoughts of not being able to walk and passing out.

This went on and on and though I stayed in the store the anxiety didn't stay gone. I would calm down and then the sensations would be back again. I didn't feel OK til I was back in the car and now I am home EXHAUSTED.

I do feel accomplished however for staying in the shop and experiencing the panic subside even if it started up again many times afterwards.

does this happen to anyone else?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Dita,

Well done for braving it through this!!! :yesyes::yahoo: Exposure work is always very tough and up & down, it's never as simple as staying there and the anxiety fading because that's about being in a controlled environment but where you were had lots of possible stimulus.

Some useful diagrams that show how it works:



http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54dc14b0e4b085335dd8b438/t/54e94f4ae4b02904f4d2fd45/1424576332043/



As you can see it climbs, then plateaus and decreases but notice the constant little blips.

Have a look at the diagram on page 22 of this NHS document which also shows this. Notice the increase:

http://www.hpft.nhs.uk/_uploads/documents/help-for-adults/cbt5-tool-2-facing-fears.pdf

That increase was on the one my therapist showed me in my CBT.

I found that the anxiety was high approaching the situation but then increased. After a while it would decrease but when I came to move out of the situation it would increase again. For me I was doing it in supermarkets and it was things like the tills that would cause the increase again.

[Shazamataz]

I think you've done well!

Ideally if you keep at it things should get easier. Remind yourself that, while you did have the anxiety, it didn't turn into a full attack and it ebbed and flowed a bit.

Next time might be a bit better?

---------- Post added at 20:37 ---------- Previous post was at 20:34 ----------

Oh, and Terry, I used to be the same at the supermarket and would start feeling better until I had to go to the checkout, which is almost a completely separate thing I suppose? Being 'stuck' in a queue and anxious was torture for me.

Currently with my relapse I'm having to go with a friend to get groceries which I'm not to happy about :(

Up until recently, my job supporting people with mental health issues involved several trips to the supermarket a week with clients who had supermarket anxiety. Now I need a support person myself!

[Ditapage]

I've saved that image into my phone, thanks Terry :) the link is a great resource also.

I have to say as hard as it was, staying and experiencing anxiety decrease feels better than leaving and believing the worst would've happened if you hadn't got out right away. That thought was the worst thing for my anxiety. I started tolerating being outside instead of enjoying being outside. The world felt like a scary place I had to run back home to escape from.

I can't grocery shop on my own either, Shaz. I don't like being somewhere I have to stay for awhile. So grocery shopping, restaurants, buying clothes are those situations. i can only go in and out of a place.

For me the feeling that I'm about to have a medical emergency and I don't know how to get help or tell someone, has been the worst :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

Glad it's of use.

For me it was looking for the exits and the deeper I got into a shop, the harder to escape it was. I thought I would be sick or lose control of my bowels. I also had the tight chest issue and worried about losing control of my breath. Basic panic instincts really.

It does get easier through repetition. Eventually you will hopefully be able to practice techniques to reduce your anxiety when in there like grounding, distraction, etc. I found these helpful e.g. strongly focussing on an object (reading wasn't easy back then) until it subsided.

The bright lights or wide open spaces in big places can just seem to start things off but it does get easier.

[pulisa]

Waiting in queues at checkouts used to be a huge trigger for me. Waiting anywhere in fact but supermarkets and shops and waiting at traffic lights was particularly unbearable. It does take time and practice at putting yourself in these situations to lessen the overwhelming sensations. Don't expect too much of yourself? Take things steadily and slow yourself down when you feel the need to flee.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Oh, and Terry, I used to be the same at the supermarket and would start feeling better until I had to go to the checkout, which is almost a completely separate thing I suppose? Being 'stuck' in a queue and anxious was torture for me.

Currently with my relapse I'm having to go with a friend to get groceries which I'm not to happy about :(

Up until recently, my job supporting people with mental health issues involved several trips to the supermarket a week with clients who had supermarket anxiety. Now I need a support person myself!

There's a long thread on here somewhere about supermarket anxiety, I think it was on the GAD board last I saw it ages ago. I reckon it's very common, anywhere like that just seems to be all "rush rush rush". The lighting used to make me go funny, some stores seem to have a strange artificial light that seems brighter to us when struggling. Again, I found this went the more I got better and it was outdoor light too but to a lesser extent.

Damn tills! They brought in the self service ones but I was too nervous to use them. Eventually I tried and use them all the time now. I hated it early on because they were new and it was constant "unknown item in the bagging area" and it was embarrassing and made me more anxious. The funny thing is I always joked that one day it would be my fist in the damn bagging area from frustration and...one day I did it trying to get a bag to open up and up came the alert! :roflmao:

At my worst I went to my GP appointments with my dad and on the odd occasion in the supermarket with him but it was more when I had my breakdown. Back then I was walking a lot but not going in places much. When I relapsed I got myself back into the supermarkets pretty quick and it helped me not fall back into that trap quite so much...but it was pretty hard!

You will get there.

I think it's great you supported other people through it.

[GingerFish]

This happened to me every single time I exposed myself, especially when I was just getting out of being housebound. You should be very proud! What you done was a very big step and this will definitely lead you on the road to recovery :D :hugs: After exposing myself in the beginning, I would be so physically and mentally exhausted after it and even more panicky than before but that is normal but it does get easier every time you expose yourself and before you know it, you'll be totally fine in a supermarket or anywhere else you once dreaded to go. Some days will be easier than others and sometimes you might even feel like you've slipped back to square one again if you do expose yourself one day and you do run instead of staying but that is fine, you are definitely not back at square one, you haven't even went back a step. Its just a blip and will have no lasting impression and will have no result on your end recovery.

[half-empty]

fear/anxiety makes your pupils bigger, letting in more light thus the feeling funny in super markets etc where light is mostly florescent. I used to feel drunk, not real etc in shops or if the sun was very bright. once you really accept these feelings are just anxiety and your not going to drop down dead I think it gets easier. I don't really know how or when it got better for me, I think mostly distraction is the key. one day I stopped waiting for the "feelings" and they became less and less I suppose. the more I focused on them the stronger they were, I pretty much stopped going out at one point I was so scared of how I felt, I still had the feelings at home but they were much less severe. got to keep pushing yourself :yesyes:

[Catherine S]

I'm claustrophobic so have a feeling of being hemmed in and trapped if there are too many people in one place...can be anywhere, public transport, cinemas, I can't even sit in the back of a car if it only has 2 doors. Actually leaving the house isn't the problem for me, it's what i'll encounter when i'm out there :ohmy:

ISB x

[faithfulone]

Thanks Terry for that article, I find it interesting since this recently happened to me where I stayed and stayed, but as Ditapage said the anxiety didn't leave, but it never was full blown panic attack. I never understood it as well as seeing the graph which makes a lot of sense.

Agree the supermarket is the worse! I can usually run around and find items that I need, but I ALWAYS choose the wrong checkout lane. Someone will either not have an item marked and we have to wait or some other incident will come up. Some times I leave the lane and then come back.
Interesting someone mentioned waiting at a red light, I thought this was only me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong when I couldn't sit at the light. I would avoid the roads with lights....lol. That has gotten better, thankfully, it was stressful in itself.

[Seffie]

I'm currently using David Carbonells (anxiety coach) panic attacks workbook which is really an updated version of Claire Weekes and he goes through in detail how to do this exposure practice. I'm working on it currently. I think the key thing to remember is Claire Weekes says - that recovery isn't the absence of symptoms but that they no longer matter. So while you wait and accept the symptoms and let them flow over you, you also need to remember that getting rid of the symptoms isn't the main goal, it's having them but not being scared of them anymore. I experienced this last week when I was out socially but managed to just carry on with the symptoms running in the background. It wasn't very nice ( and they were just symptoms not an actual oanic attack) but I managed to carry on normally not adding 2nd fear so eventually they just went away.
I try to think of it like a backache - if I've been sitting awkwardly my lower back will probably hurt but it doesn't scare me because it's discomfort not danger. If I'm anxious then I'll get anxiety symptoms but it's discomfort not danger so I try hard to accept them like I would a back ache. Does that make sense?
I feel for all of you going through this, I'm feeling incredibly lonely today having to battle on alone. I have a lovely family and friends but no-one understands what we go through and I very much get the impression that they don't want to know either. At a friends house last week we were talking about another friends who has been struggling with anxiety and depression and I was talking about how it's such a stigma etc and everyone just sat there saying nothing as though I was talking in a foreign language, I felt very alone and still do.
I don't feel I have anyone I can really talk to who totally understands what I'm going through and who can support me which is why I come on here. I am going to see a private therapist as I really need some support whilst I'm working on my anxiety. I know that it's down to me to do it but I really need someone to guide me through it and hold my hand!