Agoraphobia & Me

Agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder, classified as a marked fear or anxiety about two or more of the following:

1.       Using public transport

2.       Being in open spaces

3.       Being in enclosed spaces

4.       Standing in line or being in a crowd

5.       Being outside of the home alone

This is often because escape is feared to be difficult or extremely embarrassing.

Agoraphobia and Panic Attacks
People often develop agoraphobia if they have experienced a panic attack and so they develop an extreme fear of it happening again, so they avoid situations where they may have one or where they might not be able to leave easily if they do have one. They may not get on a bus because if they had a panic attack they would feel extremely embarrassed and they wouldn’t be able to get off of the bus straight away. They may even be home bound because their fear of having a panic attack and not being able to escape is so intense. However, agoraphobia is not the same as panic disorder, although they often coincide.

My Experience
I had been taking the bus to and from school for a while but then I started taking panic attacks at school. I had experienced a few before but none so public. One morning I was walking to the bus stop as I had done many times before but with each step I started to get more and more anxious. “What if I have a panic attack on the bus and the bus driver can’t stop and I can’t get off and everyone sees me?” I was freaking out! My head was spinning and pounding at the same time. My entire body was shaking. My arms and legs were starting to get numb. I felt like I was having a heart attack. These feelings may have become familiar but that didn’t make them any less terrifying.

Panicking over panic. Anxious about my anxiety. I sat down on the ground in front of everyone at the bus stop and had a panic attack. I was so embarrassed and exhausted.

That was the first day I didn’t take the bus because of my agoraphobia. I didn’t take it home either. Or the next day. Or the day after that either. My mum had to go to work late and leave work early because of me. Because I couldn’t take the bus. Something I had been doing since I was a young child.

Things escalated pretty quickly after this. As a perfectionist I had always prided myself on my perfect attendance at school (something which is definitely unhealthy to praise and reward but that’s a discussion for another time) but now I rarely stayed for one full day. I would have an anxiety attack in the morning and sometimes I would have another outside of school and most days I would have more during school. When I first started having them teachers would follow me when I rushed out of class, they would bring me a glass of water, sit with me until I stopped hyperventilating and let me lie down until I was ready to return to class. After a while nobody even asked if I was OK.

I get it. This was happening multiple times every day, I didn’t expect everyone to drop everything for me but the fear, pain, shame and exhaustion didn’t reduce over time, even if their concern did. I had to fight every day to go to and stay in school and it just wasn’t possible to do it alone.

“It’s exhausting to fight a war inside your head every single day.”
-Mickie Ann

Full days at school turned into half days which turned into skipping school entirely. Somehow, I managed to make it to summer. And that’s when I stopped leaving the house. But when you avoid something the fear surrounding that thing increases. I wanted to go out with friends. I wanted to go to the gym. I wanted to go out for birthday dinners. I wanted to travel. I wanted to do the things that other teenagers seemed to be doing so easily but I couldn’t even leave the house. If I tried I immediately started to hyperventilate and a lot of the time I would faint.

What kind of life could I have like this? What’s the point? These are the thoughts that I buried down but managed to rise to the surface every day. I tried to convince myself that I just wasn’t the type of person who liked going out. I don’t actually want to travel. I don’t actually want to see my friends. I’m an introvert, of course I don’t like parties!

But that’s not entirely true. I may not want to go out as much as most other people but I definitely don’t want to be trapped in my house. I wanted to go to university, I wanted to go to bookshops and Christmas markets and see the Eiffel tower. Every time my friends did something without me a piece of me broke inside. I was watching my life pass me by and I felt completely helpless.

“It’s sad, actually, because my anxiety keeps me from enjoying things as much as I should at this age.”
-Amanda Seyfried

Now, I look back at everything I missed out on. Birthdays, school dances, school trips, holidays, everything that makes life bearable and enjoyable but also everything that I needed to do. I needed to go to the bank, I needed to go to school, I needed to get a job and I needed to go to the doctors when I was sick. It didn’t matter how important it was, my agoraphobia didn’t discriminate.

I have heard people say that people with agoraphobia, who don’t leave the house, are selfish. How can someone be selfish when they didn’t choose to be this way? Is someone who is afraid of spiders selfish for not holding a spider? If you buy someone who is lactose intolerant a tub of ice-cream are they selfish if they don’t eat it?

I knew my parents could get in trouble if I didn’t go to school. I knew my friends were angry at me for not going to birthday celebrations. I knew I was a financial burden because I couldn’t leave the house to go to work. These thoughts tormented me every minute of every day and I hated myself for not being able to leave the house but I couldn’t help it. The fear and the agoraphobia was controlling me, I wasn’t controlling it. I was trying and I did want to live a normal life but I just couldn’t.

Now, after years of CBT I am leaving the house but I still have to fight every day to do this. To fight every day to do something which most people do without a second thought. When I’m not at home my chest always feels very tight and I feel nauseous. Sometimes I still have anxiety attacks but I am always on high alert. I always feel as if something is going to attack me.

People with agoraphobia and anxiety disorders are not weak, it takes so much effort to do things which most people find simple. You are not selfish for having a mental illness and for experiencing symptoms of that mental illness. You cannot judge someone’s experience of a mental illness, especially if you do not have it.

We need compassion. We need support. We do not need judgement.

“People with mental illnesses aren't wrapped up in themselves because they are intrinsically any more selfish than other people. Of course not. They are just feeling things that can't be ignored. Things that point the arrows inward.” 
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

If you liked this post you may also like:

1.       What Are Panic Attacks?

2.       How to Stop & Prevent a Panic Attack

3.       Anxiety is a Wall