Quote Originally Posted by beautifulfreak77 View Post
I see I have panic disorder with agorophobia, I take it you're not agorophobic? Or do you struggle to go out etc.
I do when not medicated. There have been times when I literally couldn't set foot outside the front door of the house to check the mail. But with meds I can/have travelled the world. Drove the length of Tasmania and back today, around 500 miles.

I can now go out locally if someone is with me but it’s getting harder now as kids are grown up and you can’t force them to go with you.
Gradual exposure can help. Walk from home until you begin to feel a little uncomfortable and stop there until the anxiety eases, then walk back home. Repeat it until you no longer feel any anxiety when you get to the same spot and then walk further until you again begin to feel a little uncomfortable and keep rinsing and repeating until you're comfortable going anywhere. The important bit is the word 'little.' The mistake many make is by pushing too hard and becoming overly anxious which reinforces the agoraphobia instead of diminishing it.

she says she doesn’t suffer herself that she’d not let her self fall into the trap of anxiety or depression which I thought was a bit unfair as none of us asked for this and it can happen to anyone.
Exactly!! Anxiety/depression aren't a choice, any more than type 1 diabetes, or arthritis are. They are all caused by auto-immune reactions.

Some doctors have all the empathy of a house brick and the bedside manner of Ghengis Khan!! The problem is university selections for medicine are almost exclusively based on test results these days. It wasn't always the case in the past when empathy/bedside manner was also considered. There are still the odd med school holding the line, but not many. Plus, as a former GP of mine was fond of saying, these days GPs know less and less about more and more as knowledge expands exponentially , whereas specialities are going in the opposite direction, splitting into more and more sub specialities where they know more and more about less and less. It is almost at the point where the guy you see about a problem with a big toe can't help with little toe issues!