Agoraphobia

[chrissie42]

Most people think Agorophobia is a fear of "open spaces" whenever I tell people I have Agoraphobia they say "Oh you are afraid to go out"

I wish it were that simple huh !

I try to explain to them that Agoraphobia is actually a FEAR of FEAR.

That most agoraphobics want to Avoid the fear In panic and this is what keeps it going...fear feeds fear as we all know and "feeling" fear Day in day out is something we want to avoid, so we develop agoraphobia which covers a wide spectrum of problems.

As someone who has suffered Panic/Anxiety Disorder for 21 yrs I know only to well the complex web this disorder weaves into our lives and how one thing can lead to another etc.

When I developed Agoraphobia I thought I would never be well again and spent two yrs almost completely housebound...CBT helped me a lot and taught me about positive thinking and changing habitual thinking and how in a moment of panic we can regain control - letting go and telling ourselves - "do your worst" it does work and although its hard work I have practised this many times - practise makes perfect - YES?

Chrissie.[8D]



chrissie

[benoo5]

chrissie,

i read a guys life story,not so long ago..he would feel a panic come on,and he would shout aloud,no matter where he was..come on you bastarx,do your worse,and he would take it on head first..he hasent had an attack for five years now..and sometimes he does things to try and bring an attack on,just so he can prove hes the boss,but it doesnt happen....hes beaten it..your attitude is right,well done,be positive...best wishes..bryan.

[nomorepanic]

The way I explain agoraphobia to people is that it is a fear of being away from your safety zone. I can make my safety zone my house or my place of work (for the usual Mon-Fri routine) but if I am away from home for too long I do get a bit anxious.

Nicola

[Laurie28]

I must admit I thought agorophobia was a fear of open spaces.

I like your friends attitude Brian, but I would probably get arrested - lol

Love
lucky

[twister]

agrophobia is both a fear of open spaces and a fear of enclosed spaces, or situations you can't escape from - confusing or what?

Emily

[Rennie1989]

I usually cant go to school coz thats my DANGER zone. i always get my panic attacks there. I usuallly find it hard just to step out of my home, my safty

Agoraphobia is a fear of big open spaces like a hall or a field or shopping. It also means that you are not in a safe place like home or somewhere formiluar.

Jade[:p]

[Vicky]

Brian, I like the shouting out aloud idea! He was so brave to do that, he must have had loads of people staring at him, but he did it anyway! Good for him.

Jade, school is my number 1. scary place too. How do you manage? I have cut my lessons right down to just one subject, Art, and I go in when I can, so say once a week. My parents have to sit in the carpark for me to go in just for the hours lesson. They have been brilliant.

[Rennie1989]

Vicky

I dont want my parents to get involved. I always think to my self ''I can do this. Nothibg is gonna stop me'' i just do possitive thinking

Jade

[mico]

I read somewhere once that agorophobia (the word, not the illness) comes from ancient greece, and that 'Agoro' actually means 'market place' in th ancient greek language. So really you could call it market place phobia, although I suppose the meaning of words can change over time can't they, and 2000 years or so is a long time!

So make of that what you will, just think it's an interesting point that's all.

[Buby]

yes mico.....it is interesting.

wouldn't it be great to live 2000 years ago. well in a way. but i couldn't imagine using all them different words, i prefer our words, don't you?

any other words you find that are related in some way with us people you let me know, id love to hear about it, even though im taking geography not history for GCSE's. but id still love to know.

hugs to you.
from ratchit aka rachel

[Buby]

sorry i didnt mean to post it twice. it was just really slow.

[Buby]

just so you dont get comfused, it was posted twice a minute ago, but now its gone so im not going mad just yet...i dont think.

[Meg]

It was me Rachel.
As the server or something is slow at the moment there are lots of double posts as people get impatient and hit the submit twice - or more , I end up deleting them so the thread flows better.

You're not mad , nor got double vision !!


Meg

Watch your thoughts, they become your words...
Watch your words, they become your actions... Watch your actions, they become your habits... Watch your habits, they become your character... Watch your character, it becomes your destiny...

[Rennie1989]

im never patient. the sims, pc game, take ages to load, i think its 5 minutes. just sayin

Jade

[swiftler]

oh no...looks like a suffer from agoraphobia too!.....home and work are my safe places

[Rennie1989]

my home and my nan and grandads are my safe zones, ive lived in boths homes so im sure they are safe.

Jade

[stimpy]

My safe zone is my sofa.
I've slowly conquered the fear of my street, so I now think of my street as a safe zone.
I'm working on being able to leave my street, but first I've got to learn to turn off my homing device, as it always seems to know when I'm going away from home.

Love, light and Best wishes
Liz xxx

[:p] Panic Monster & Scatty Excentric

[Buby]

my saftey zone is this pc. when im on it i feel less nervous and very safe. i dont know why.

hugs rachel xx

[Meg]

Dear Rachel,

Because you're doing something and are distracted, whether on this site or others, also we understand .

Meg

[nomorepanic]

I make home and work my safety place so I can travel between the 2.

I find going on holiday quite hard but when I went away last year to a health farm I quickly made that my safe place and I was fine.

Just shows that we can move the safe places around as we need to.

Nicola

[Rennie1989]

When im on holiday my safe place is the beach and up to 2 meters of sea. I cant make schoolmy safe place coz im always getting PA and i never enjoy it.

Jade

[Hears The Water]

Oh, how funny that Agorophobia literaly translates to fear of the market place! For quite a while after 9/11 I would barely go out of the house. I was convinced that terrorists would bomb our local Wal-Mart :D Looking back now I think it is silly, but at the time it was powerful and scary. I live in a fairly small town in the mid-west of the US and we are so not a target. But it was so hard for me to go there for so long. It wansn't until I learned how to breathe better that going there was not so bad. I was hyperventalating and that made everything look so strange. It is better now. It just takes time.
God Bless you and yours
Debbie

[bluebird1]

one thing that made my agoraphobia worse was the thought "what if i panic in front of other people that would be so humiliating" then my CBT told me she frequently puts on panic attacks while she was out with patients to show them what would happen, which was most people dont even notice. caring lot arent we? lol. it helped me a lot though.
Bluebird 1 (lyn)

[dcaroon]

I think the sims is a boring game!
But I like to play sim city

[sarah]

sim city is excellent...but hard...lol

love Sarah
xx

[Buby]

does this sound weird? my safe place is newhere outside, like driving, bein in a field, not school tho, makes me nervous.

ive neva played the sims, well ive played the normal one round me mates its funny wen they get the hump and he chucks her on the floor!! hilarious!

hugs xxx

[misstique39]

hi my safe place is my home i havent been out for 11 years but i am finally going to get some help soon, so its never to late:D

[sarah]

Hi Tina

welcome to the site, glad to have you here :)
You are right, its never to late to start getting help..what sort of help are you going to get?
keep in touch.

love Sarah
xx

[Meg]

Excellent Misstique

Welcome to the site . I hope you can find some support here as you start out in your recovery

You're quite right, it's never too late to get help. What sort of help are you getting ?

Do post in the introduction section and tell us a bit more about yourself.


Meg

Watch your thoughts, they become your words...
Watch your words, they become your actions... Watch your actions, they become your habits... Watch your habits, they become your character... Watch your character, it becomes your destiny...

[stimpy]

Hello and welcome, misstique.

You are right, it's never too late.

Good luck with the recovery, keep us posted on how you are getting on.

Love, light and Best wishes
Liz xxx

[:p] Panic Monster & Scatty Eccentric

[brill]

My agoraphobia is getting worse I just know it,6-8 weeks ago I would go out of the house (by myself) to buy a packet of durries when the desire for a smoke became greater then the fear of going to get them. Now I would rather go without then have to face the fear of going out.
One of my problems with my agoraphobia is that I feel happy and safe locked in the house and the thought of breaking from this safety zone is to horrible to even think about.I guess what I am saying is that I feel almost happy in a round about way that my agoraphobia is getting worse because then if I don,t go out I don,t have to face the panic and the days of high anxioty I get before I go out. And then have to deal with the horrible physical symptoms after the event.So this is why I feel at the moment that I will never get better.But deep down there somewhere there is gotta be a little part of me who wants to try,I just have to find him somehow.

Anyway sorry I raddled on a bit but it was something I had to get of my chest and share with you all.Just let me know if you think I have just given up or if you think it is a force that is to powerfull for me to deal with at the moment.

Ok take care all BRILL :):):):):):)

[sarah]

Hiya Brill

I have been where you are.
Last year I went from like you say..desparate for a packet of ciggies and going out to get more, to not leaving my house if my life depended on it as it was safe. I too was happy that I didnt have to face things and could be left alone to watch tv, play games, sleep all day etc without being faced with the big outdoors.

Since then, with the nagging of my well meant but bloody minded and irritating husband, I have gotten myself out of it. (It came to the fact that I thought he was going to leave me - and worse of all I started to wish he would so I could go back to my mums and hide in my old bedroom for the rest of my life).
That was when I though 'uh oh, I really am losing sight of reality here'.

I got myself some help, my hubby nagged me and kept dragging me out(nearly always in tears) and I made some sort of progress.

The main thing that I have come to realise in the last month or so is that theres only so many PS2 games you can afford when youve got no job and no money and I am SO BORED watching the same four walls!!!

I think in my case a little switch seems to have turned in my head that says I have to LIVE again, which is what im aiming to do. Ive been out all day today..done some gardening, been to town shopping, been to the hospital for blood tests, driven my convertible in the lovely sun we have been having...and you know what?, I felt glad today for the first time in ages that im not confined to my home.

I guess what im trying to say is, sometimes it doesnt matter what you think or feel or do to make yourself better (although the hypnotherapy ive been having seems to be doing something good), sometimes it takes just plain boredom to get you back on your feet.

Maybe not the best advice ive given but the fact is you have to want to help yourself before you can make a start. Maybe you do just need to stay at home for a while till you sort your head out and get bored with the situation....the other choice is to keep getting out there small steps at a time...just to the end of the driveway, next 4 houses up etc...as we say on here 'little steps' and you will get there.

Ok so ive given you mixed messages...lol, stay home and sort your head out or keep practicing and you will get there (I was lucky that my 'switch' turned on and I started helping myself but I speak from experience when I say my nan's didnt and she was agoraphobic from the age of 28 till she died age 73...long time to waste if you dont try - mind you the help wasnt really available then though).

I hope this gives you inspiration or any help...I tried...lol

love Sarah
xx

ps..how did your wife get on yesterday?

[brill]

Thank you so very much sarah.
My wifes op went good, I think although she does not tell me much because I am very proctive of her latley and if she told me the whole story she knows I would get very angry at the doc,s thats what she said anyway.
Thank you for shareing your experence with me.When I read a story like yours it really touches me because I know the effort you would have had to put into getting some form of wellness.Well done mate :)
I have tryed the little steps approach with little success,this has been going on for about 2< years and to be totally honest with you I know I have gotten a whole lot worse during this process,It,s not like I am totally housebound I do on some rare occasions go out with my wife and it is that part of my life I really want to put all of my effort into keeping.I remember about 3 years ago the doctor that was treating me at the time telling me I was at a cross road in my life I could choose the hard road and get well or take the easy road and become totally agorophobic.How true these words ring in my ears today.If only I had listened to him then ha.
I think the bigest problem I am faced with going out is that I don,t trust any human at all. I do trust some close family members but not totally because they have all left me alone whylest I was out with them at some time. And for people I don,t know at all I feel an over wellming and total fear of them,and on a bad day I can even say it becomes a form of hatrid towards them.Its a horrible thing to say but I am being totally honest.
Anyway sarah thankyou for your post and maybe I will try to make life as boring as I posibally can or just waight for my switch to come on I know that deep down I want to get better I have to just find that part of me.

Thankyou BRILL :):):):):):):):)