Aa
agoraphobie
Has my anxiety and panic attacks made me afraid to be in public so quickly? Had my first panic attack in july and the the 7 th september is when it started again, only to the point it is everyday. I almost didnt make it out of a store yesterday when i went in to get household supplies. Ive always been very social and now i dont want to even get groceries for my family. What the heck is this crap im going thru?? I hate it.
Ive been to the therapist only once and i have the next appt in a two weeks. I am now on 20 mg prozac and .5 xanax. I guess yesterday thru me for a loop. I couldnt sleep last night either. The thing is I DONT WANT TO BE LIKE THIS THE REST OF MY LIFE! Which i know no one does. Thank you for all your advice i really appreciate it.
Oh yes, the dreaded agoraphobia. Unfortunately, that goes together with panic like salt and pepper. Two peas in a pod. It definitely is awful and can be debilitating.
While it's hard to do (will get easier with practice), the very BEST thing you can do to combat it is to push yourself as much as you can. If you start giving in to the fear and start avoiding the places that you fear (which will become many over time), it just reinforces to your mind that there is something to fear. The more you can push yourself through to endure those moments of panic, the more the opposite message gets relayed to your brain, the message that there is nothing to fear. Therapy can be a huge help with this also, learning how to handle that urge to flee, etc. You're in therapy if I remember correctly, right? How often do you go? Have you found it helpful?
Remind me again what your treatment regimen consists of? I know a lot of this is new to you, but the good news is, you've reached out pretty quickly, a lot of people wait years, hoping it will just "go away". If that were only true!
I've been there, done that. I've had varying degrees of agoraphobia with my panic. From very mild, mostly fearing the "bigger" stuff (like places/events with lots of crowds, traffic, places I perceive there is not an easy "escape" from), to being virtually housebound at times. I can tell you first hand that the more I gave in to the fear, the more I avoided things because of the anxiety, the worse I got. It really is very much basic conditioning.
Keep something else in mind (repeat this in your head or even out loud if you want to when you're panicking).....FEAR IS NOT FACT. When you start becoming nervous, don't surrender to the fearful thoughts (like "what if I die?"..."what if I pass out?"..."what if I lose control?"), but rather the FACTS...(ie, "I am safe and nothing is going to happen."..."I've never passed out with my anxiety"....I am in complete control of myself, I can go wherever I want, whenever I want.")
Hope this helps. I feel for you, I know how awful it is. Keep posting. Getting to a point where the anxiety and panic is more manageable unfortunately takes time, it doesn't happen overnight. That's frustrating because as you've found out, it doesn't take long at all for anxiety to worsen and progress. Just the nature of the beast.
Hang in there!
While it's hard to do (will get easier with practice), the very BEST thing you can do to combat it is to push yourself as much as you can. If you start giving in to the fear and start avoiding the places that you fear (which will become many over time), it just reinforces to your mind that there is something to fear. The more you can push yourself through to endure those moments of panic, the more the opposite message gets relayed to your brain, the message that there is nothing to fear. Therapy can be a huge help with this also, learning how to handle that urge to flee, etc. You're in therapy if I remember correctly, right? How often do you go? Have you found it helpful?
Remind me again what your treatment regimen consists of? I know a lot of this is new to you, but the good news is, you've reached out pretty quickly, a lot of people wait years, hoping it will just "go away". If that were only true!
I've been there, done that. I've had varying degrees of agoraphobia with my panic. From very mild, mostly fearing the "bigger" stuff (like places/events with lots of crowds, traffic, places I perceive there is not an easy "escape" from), to being virtually housebound at times. I can tell you first hand that the more I gave in to the fear, the more I avoided things because of the anxiety, the worse I got. It really is very much basic conditioning.
Keep something else in mind (repeat this in your head or even out loud if you want to when you're panicking).....FEAR IS NOT FACT. When you start becoming nervous, don't surrender to the fearful thoughts (like "what if I die?"..."what if I pass out?"..."what if I lose control?"), but rather the FACTS...(ie, "I am safe and nothing is going to happen."..."I've never passed out with my anxiety"....I am in complete control of myself, I can go wherever I want, whenever I want.")
Hope this helps. I feel for you, I know how awful it is. Keep posting. Getting to a point where the anxiety and panic is more manageable unfortunately takes time, it doesn't happen overnight. That's frustrating because as you've found out, it doesn't take long at all for anxiety to worsen and progress. Just the nature of the beast.
Hang in there!
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