Agoraphobia, What It's All About, Panic, Anxiety: Living with Agoraphobia

Living with Agoraphobia

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Living with Agoraphobia

Phobics: The Masters at Avoidance!

Just My Imagination

Another classic symptom of agoraphobia is “what if” thinking (which ties in very nicely with anticipatory anxiety). Phobics are extremely intelligent, creative and imaginative people, but we allow those wonderful qualities to work against us. It's because we have that incredible imagination that we can see every conceivable side to any given situation (I used to tell myself that if I ever recovered to the point where I could travel, I was heading for Sweden to have my imagination surgically removed!). Let’s set another scene:

You're stopped at a traffic light, one car ahead of you, and a few behind you. You drum your fingers against the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for the light to turn green. Suddenly, the thought floats through your mind: "What if this light is broken and I am stuck here forever??? (Phobics are also absolute thinkers: We don’t have many gray areas, just black and white. And everything is extreme, like "never", "forever", "always.") What if I have a heart attack and the ambulance can’t reach me because of all these cars around me? What if the car in front of me breaks down and I can’t get around him?" (You get my drift here.) Now, the three other non-phobic drivers stuck in that line of traffic are calmly distracting themselves by filing their nails, reading the paper, cleaning out the glove box and digging out the spare change from between the seats, while YOU are having a grand old time making yourself nuts by coming up with scenario-after- scenario, each one worse than the last. So you're off to the races again, adrenaline pumping merrily away.

Okay, now that I’ve scared the beejeebers out of you, let me give you the good news…

YOU ARE NOT CRAZY!

That bears repeating:

YOU ARE NOT CRAZY!

Say that to yourself 50 times a day until you start believing it. Paste it on your bathroom mirror and read it while you're brushing your teeth. Hire a sky-writer to fly over your house and put it up there in 50-foot tall letters if you have to. But believe it. It’s the truth.

Wait a sec… I feel another truth coming on…

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GO CRAZY EITHER!

Repeat the same procedure, as above, for this one, too.

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Agoraphobia is caused by a combination of heredity and environment. It's a behavioral disorder, not a mental illness. There are those of us with personalities pre-disposed to being phobic. We're highly intelligent, creative, imaginative and sensitive (and no, “sensitive” is NOT a bad word!). We have many, many sterling qualities and are viable, productive and useful members of society. We are very loving, kind, compassionate and caring. We are “people” persons, always willing to give and give of ourselves. And these are NOT bad things!

The other good news is that this is a very treatable condition. You do NOT have to relegate yourself to the attic and become crazy Aunt Hattie who no one ever sees. The process is a slow one, but look how long it took you to get to this point! And once the recovery process begins, it too snowballs until your world begins expanding once again.

Good luck and Godspeed!

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