Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
Agoraphobia often means a fear of going beyond one's room or home to the world outside.
I have this fear quite often, though not 100% of the time, maybe about 95% of the time.
I know that other people in the anxiety community also suffer from agoraphobia.
Let's think beyond medications and doctors for a brief moment and ask ourselves what is it that causes this extreme overwhelming fear?
It would be easy to blame ourselves, to think that we are defective or broken beings, and that popping a pill will solve the problem. For those who can pop pills and get relief from agoraphobia, congratulations; I envy you.
What if the problem isn't entirely within oneself? What if there is a legitimate, real, tangible reason for the condition of agoraphobia, and what if it's outside ourselves? Could we have been conditioned by other people and situations? Are we afraid of encountering people who are rude, cruel, abusive, dangerous, or crazy out there? Is it that there isn't anything out there that is appealing enough to draw us outside, like friends or fun things to do? How did life become so unrewarding? Is there something else going on?
I have this fear quite often, though not 100% of the time, maybe about 95% of the time.
I know that other people in the anxiety community also suffer from agoraphobia.
Let's think beyond medications and doctors for a brief moment and ask ourselves what is it that causes this extreme overwhelming fear?
It would be easy to blame ourselves, to think that we are defective or broken beings, and that popping a pill will solve the problem. For those who can pop pills and get relief from agoraphobia, congratulations; I envy you.
What if the problem isn't entirely within oneself? What if there is a legitimate, real, tangible reason for the condition of agoraphobia, and what if it's outside ourselves? Could we have been conditioned by other people and situations? Are we afraid of encountering people who are rude, cruel, abusive, dangerous, or crazy out there? Is it that there isn't anything out there that is appealing enough to draw us outside, like friends or fun things to do? How did life become so unrewarding? Is there something else going on?
I'm scared to go outside mostly because I feel unsafe. I just have this feeling that something bad is going to happen. It could be anything. Meeting dangerous people, getting in to an accident or anything that can go wrong.
As with the poster above me, there are days when the farther away from home the more anxious I get. Then there are days when I'm fine. I think I finally got tired of the constant battle with anxiety and just gave up and stayed home to avoid struggling with it period. It was just to distressing, and there was NOTHING out there that was worth the way I felt, absolutely nothing.
Knowing the cause does not lead to healing.
If you have PTSD the trauma is stored in the amygdala and in the body. Observing the thoughts integrates the emotions at some point.
Meditation will heal agoraphobia with the use of acceptance therapy. I know from experience. I was normaal for 4 months and now i am battling it again but meditation will heal is subtlely and slowly.
It sounds to me as though you are depressed aswell as anxious which is very common as they both go hand in hand together.
If you've had a bad experience in the past when you've been threatened by an abusive person, this can be a trigger for future anxiety attacks.
This can be overcome by meditation, deep breathing and hypnotherapy. With perseverence you will overcome your fears and start enjoying going out, meeting friends and enjoying life again
Causes? I see that the following have already been mentioned:
believing we are defective or broken
fearing other people
learning to fear going beyond one's room or home
seeing no reward, or having no motivation to go outside
- - - - -
I believe that considering possible causes, and examining the history of our personal agoraphobia can help us to challenge our beliefs and expectations. Thanks Beaumont.
I guess for me what I am afraid of is being away from my home,my safe place, and having a panic attack. I fear dying out there in front of everyone or being carted off in an ambulance or having a heart attack. I don't really have much to draw me out either. I wish my pills could help me get rid of this as well and take all this away but I have come to believe that my medication has caused me more problems then it has helped.