emma81
17-04-09, 17:40
I am going to try and make this as short as possible. When i 1st developed agoraphobia and panic attacks about 4 years ago it all happened after a horrible horrible evening with my so called best friend telling me that my boyfriend at the time's family all hated me. This wasnt a stupid little thing this was a long term adult relationship where everything had been great until she started dating his brother and that all messed up and for whatever reason, to get back at them, to split us up, i dont know, she started saying an abundance of really cruel and nasty things claiming his family had said it all about me. That day on the way home i experienced my 1st ever panic attack while i was driving, threw up all over myself in the car on the motorway, heart pounding, stomach in a thousand knots - well you know what i mean. From there the agoraphobia seemed to kick in, everytime after that i tried to go anywhere in the car i froze with fear that i was going to get that ill again, experience those feelings again, to the point where 4 years later it still has a massive grasp over me.
Anyway on a positive note i have finally been tackling it through a mixture of relaxation, anxiety management, exposure therapy and hypnotherapy, as well as medication i have been making some great progress lately and the anxiety and panic no longer scare me as much as it did. I feel i can handle it a lot better and can even get about 30 miles from the house alone now which is a massive achievement for me..... until today.
I have had very little contact with the best friend back then who it all kicked off from, i didnt even know she still had my phone number as she hasnt lived in my area for 3 years now. She phoned me out of the blue this afternoon to say she was visiting family and missed me. As soon as i heard her voice my stomach started churning, i tried to be polite and say i was busy and she said her battery was dying she was just going to pop round. Well i grabbed my coat got in the car and got the hell away from here. Driving away i became overwhelmed with panic, had an almost identical experience to that very 1st time, pulled over and was sick everywhere then sat parked up in a lay by shaking, crying, heart palpitating, terrified to see her. I used all my relaxation and anxiety controlling techniques and after 30 or 40 mins calmed myself down enough to return home. Just as i was parking the car i saw her walking down the street towards my house and this rush of panic washed right over me again - and i drove off again. The logical part of my head was saying this is ridiculous, just get out and be polite say hello then make an excuse to leave, just get it over and done with, she cant hurt me. The panic was saying dont go near her, she is going to make you feel so much worse, she started all of this, it was all her fault, she is evil, she just wants to hurt you again, dont let her, stay away.
So in the end i ran and didnt fight it. The one thing i am making a point of is not running from panic just now - i face it so i dont reinforce the belief that it will hurt me. But my head is a swarming mess just now. Have i just reinforced the belief that she must be avoided? Does it even matter? Why does she terrify me so much? Arghhh this was only meant to be a paragraph and now its like a novel maybe i just needed to rant. I just dont know if i did the right thing. I know there is good anxiety when you are in genuine danger that you need to be able to identify, and there is the bad anxiety that tries to take over our minds by making us believe something will cause us danger when actually it wont. Im trying so hard to seperate the 2 - but what is she? Is she an actual danger? It was 4 years ago - she has admitted since then she was jealous of me and she didnt know why she made it up, i am not even with the guy now. Why the hell does she still bother me so much?
Sorry rant over. At last.
Anyway on a positive note i have finally been tackling it through a mixture of relaxation, anxiety management, exposure therapy and hypnotherapy, as well as medication i have been making some great progress lately and the anxiety and panic no longer scare me as much as it did. I feel i can handle it a lot better and can even get about 30 miles from the house alone now which is a massive achievement for me..... until today.
I have had very little contact with the best friend back then who it all kicked off from, i didnt even know she still had my phone number as she hasnt lived in my area for 3 years now. She phoned me out of the blue this afternoon to say she was visiting family and missed me. As soon as i heard her voice my stomach started churning, i tried to be polite and say i was busy and she said her battery was dying she was just going to pop round. Well i grabbed my coat got in the car and got the hell away from here. Driving away i became overwhelmed with panic, had an almost identical experience to that very 1st time, pulled over and was sick everywhere then sat parked up in a lay by shaking, crying, heart palpitating, terrified to see her. I used all my relaxation and anxiety controlling techniques and after 30 or 40 mins calmed myself down enough to return home. Just as i was parking the car i saw her walking down the street towards my house and this rush of panic washed right over me again - and i drove off again. The logical part of my head was saying this is ridiculous, just get out and be polite say hello then make an excuse to leave, just get it over and done with, she cant hurt me. The panic was saying dont go near her, she is going to make you feel so much worse, she started all of this, it was all her fault, she is evil, she just wants to hurt you again, dont let her, stay away.
So in the end i ran and didnt fight it. The one thing i am making a point of is not running from panic just now - i face it so i dont reinforce the belief that it will hurt me. But my head is a swarming mess just now. Have i just reinforced the belief that she must be avoided? Does it even matter? Why does she terrify me so much? Arghhh this was only meant to be a paragraph and now its like a novel maybe i just needed to rant. I just dont know if i did the right thing. I know there is good anxiety when you are in genuine danger that you need to be able to identify, and there is the bad anxiety that tries to take over our minds by making us believe something will cause us danger when actually it wont. Im trying so hard to seperate the 2 - but what is she? Is she an actual danger? It was 4 years ago - she has admitted since then she was jealous of me and she didnt know why she made it up, i am not even with the guy now. Why the hell does she still bother me so much?
Sorry rant over. At last.