Recently diagnosed Agoraphobia

I was recently diagnosed with borderline agoraphobia. I've always been socially anxious but in November of '09, I had a minor but still very damaging nervous breakdown. So everything I used to be is completely gone. I'll feel little surges of my old self but now I can just barely leave my house without a family member or a friend. I educate myself from home, and I do tutor (on my mother's insistence it'd be good for me)...so I'm not completely lost. I live with family, which helps and have some of the most amazing friends. And I manage to keep appointments well enough, except the creepy tunnel vision "whoa how did I get home so fast?" questions that linger after that ride.
But days, like today, when being stuck inside and not being able to go down my apartment stairs to go outside are what hit me the most. I panic, often, for no reason; and it does bother me that having a therapist and a doctor tell me this could be common, that people assume I need a reason to be a basket case. I'm actually just getting over a three hour panic attack, slowly...I still feel like I'm having the air sucked out of me, but not as rapidly.

I'm not medicated. This was my own choice, to remain un-medicated and to face my problems head on. But right now, the people I have in my life, aside from some family and my therapist, seem to not understand the difference between Social anxiety with panic disorder and Agoraphobia with panic disorder...which I have both, yay for double edged swords! And these people assume that a simple attack is easily solved, oh how I wish...I'm just struggling, trying to find my path and to understand my new disorder and to help those around me understand it as well.

I guess I'm just trying to figure out a way to tell my family and friends how to help me deal with the problem, by not making themselves a bigger problem in the process (since I tend to get snappy and waspish when I am under distress). And I'm trying to find people who can relate and not pressure their tactics of dealing, on me.

Hi ZombieDoll_Face,

Welcome to the forums.

I hear ya. It's hard for me to get out of the house, too. I think that the "tunnel vision how-did-I-get here" you're getting could be short-term de-realization. It's related to anxiety. It's basically the brain's way of protecting itself from being overstimulated.

I know how hard it is when people don't understand. Sometimes, I feel like I'm explaining colors to a blind person.

The truth is that you don't need a reason to be a basket case. And don't call yourself names, btw. Hurts me a bit when forum members do that to themselves... Anyway, different people respond in different ways to the same stimulus. Some folks will find an event catastrophic; others will walk away unscathed. And the event could be as huge as an earthquake or as simple as one person yelling at another while trying on hats. The issue is how the brain processes the information.

I'm not gonna tell you what to do; I'm just going to sympathize. But keep in mind that folks on this forum want to help. So it might be best, if you don't want to hear advice (which I'm sure you already get plenty of), to specify it in your threads or signature. That way, you can just use the forum to blow off some steam.

The only advice I'm gonna give you is that I would try to avoid getting stuck, in the "woe is me" stage. (Not saying that you're there now; not saying that you're necessarily gonna be.) If you've decided to do this on your own, without meds, then you must keep working forward. Of course, taking breaks from self-therapy and venting are gonna be part of it--so feel free to post.

Take care,

--Frayed

Well I have a therapist, and she does wonders for me. Unfortunately, in Ontario, I can only see her for five sessions and then I have to wait for another renewal. So I'm faced with that. I have tactics I use, but somedays are just so hard...like today. I would have given anything for something to calm me down, three hours of panicking was intense.

And I understand fully that people will want to help, it's more than welcome. I just have issues with "this is how I do it, now you do it"...it started after my nervous breakdown. I went from being independent to dependent on family and friends for support...and a lot of support was "do it my way"...it was horrid.

Been there...both in terms of meds and in terms of people who think they have the answers.

I'm on limited meds for my condition, but I manage with self-help techniques. And yeah, several-hour-long panic attacks really suck.

I've had folks give me strategies, but they pushed so hard that I was unable to take their advice.

Strange, though. I've had the same information presented to me in an non-invasive way, and I was able to use the advice then. I guess, for me, the difference is a matter of respect.

--Frayed

Well last night, in the worst of my moments...a friend recognized my call of distress on my Facebook and called me immediately. She did her best but since I was at my worst, it didn't help much, but I'm grateful that she did that.

I am glad that through the fog, I was sane enough to go on my computer and started to hunt for places like this. I think this was just the place I was looking for.