Agoraphobia

 This is a blog that I have been meaning to post for a long time, but it escaped my mind. It's something I dealt with when I had anxiety and I am sure many others did or do as well.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."-Nelson Mandela

Agoraphobia is the fear of being in certain situations that a person perceives as being dangerous and is related to their anxiety.

For me, I think people tend to have these fear in places where they think they can have a panic attack or things that they associate with a panic attack or anxiety. For example, for me night time, being bored or a movie theater were sources of fear because I associated those things to my anxiety and my anxiety attacks. Wherever, I would experience a panic attack would be the place that I feared of going to so I wouldn't go there all together and that is completely normal. It's hard to forget our suffering.

However, one of the things that I want you to realize is that a bridge, the mall, the movie theater are not the things that cause your panic attacks or anxiety. It's your fear of having anxiety while you are at the mall or on the bridge that causes you anxiety and the panic. For example, I was terrified of the night time because the first time I experienced a panic attack was at night. Therefore, when everyone was ready to sleep I would get anxious and get very panicky. The reason why I got panicky around that time is because in my mind I associated nighttime to anxiety, to panic attacks and to all my suffering. However, nighttime wasn't causing my anxiety. It was my fear of "Oh it's night time, now I am going to have a panic attack that caused my anxiety." I would literally sit there as soon as it got dark waiting for my panic attacking. Preparing myself for it in any way that I could. How am I not going to going to get a panic attack when I am waiting for it? As soon as it got to night time I would release stress into my body that didn't react well with my sensitized body. I would notice every sensation and wait for my panic attack to come. Because I was so stressed and so fearful I would release adrenalin and that would start the "fight or flight response" mechanism and boom there I was with another anxiety attack.

The point is, that regardless of what your fear is you have to let it go. It is hard to do, but it is not impossible. You have to understand that the only reason you get so anxious and fearful when going to the movies, the mall or places that you are fearful of is because you have associated them with anxiety and suffering. The truth is, if instead of trying to fight off anxiety and worrying about how you are going to get anxious when you get to such places you were to remain calm you wouldn't get anxious at all. Your fear causes you to release adrenalin into your bloodstream and then your hit with an anxiety attack or anxiety. If you were to remain calm and accept things, you would most likely feel nothing. However, it would be highly unwise for me to suggest that you could lose all your fear at once. The first few times you go, you will be slightly nervous and that is fine. But just remember you don't want to fight off anything and you most definitely don't want to be fearful. Instead you want to face, accept, float past your problem and with time it won't be a problem!

Your fear has everything to do with your anxiety and panic attacks. As soon as you are able to understand your fear and realize that it is a figment of your imagination the sooner it would stop bothering you.

However, I would still like to say that if something or some place causes you to feel anxious and if you do not want to go to these places right now, that is fine. With time you will be able to go back to all the places you once loved and do all the things you enjoyed doing. If you cannot go now, do not try to force yourself. There is no need to rub salt on to fresh wounds. With time things will become easier. Allow yourself time and when the time is right and you feel ready to accept the next course, then you can go where ever you heart desires so don't worry if you don't want to or cannot go to these places at once. Time heals all wounds and with time your wounds will be healed .

I hope this has helped you. I know this is a very important blog for many of you and I have made it shorter than most normal blogs so that I don't scare you off before you even start reading. Remember you don't want fear to control you. You want to control your fear. I will talk to you guys all next time in the next blog. Till then!

Abigail Monroe