hello everyone.
I don't know if any of you have come across this before. About 4 years ago I started having panic attacks and really severe anxiety centering around my bedroom (mainly as this was where I was spending all my time when not at Uni, work or with friends).
The best way to describe this phobia is that I feel things are not sturdy, secure or safe. My most vivid memory of it starting was when I was tidying my room, I shared it then with both of my sisters and it had a massive amount of stuff in it. I remember thinking that the floor surely couldn't support all of this stuff - and bang. there it was. Its only gotten worse ever since.
I feel this in new buildings, places where I can see the floor to be unlevel (glass of wine in a restaurant not being perfectly horizontal will trigger it just as much as me sitting downstairs glancing at the ceiling and noticing cracks in the plaster leading from the middle of each of the four walls -- this is where the heaviest objects are...)
It's getting a bit ridiculous. Most of my belongings are piled against the walls because what little I remember from Physics is that walls and floors are strongest where they meet. I won't have anything in the middle of the room. I feel it even when I drive past a house at night and I can see into the house, and see that there is a lot of stuff in the rooms, I start freaking out about how the house would support itself.
It's really driving me mad, I'm 24 and I've never had anything like this, I've travelled the world for the past 18 months and there's been no rhyme or reason to the peaks and troughs of me feeling better and then worse. I don't even know what to call the damn phobia.
I've been to see a Behavioural Psychologist, which didn't work, and the doctor gave me one box of Diazepam before I went travelling 'for emergencies'. I made friends with a chemist in Aus who gave me Xanax instead, which worked far better for me, but I'm out of both right now, and although not in dire need right now, I'm at a loss for what to do next.
If anyone has any advice, tips, comments, I would really appreciate them.