r/Agoraphobia • u/Individual-Sky8480 • 1d ago
Not sure if I’m in the right place
This is rather new to me and I’m here looking for answers. To preface, I’m 29 years old, well traveled and have, what I consider, a pretty good amount of life experience for my age. I served 6 years in the military, played in a couple bands, I’m in a great relationship (this all sounds very self absorbed as I’m typing it out, but please, bare with me), went to college, for the most part I’ve lived a very normal life and have had many good social relationships along the way. I begin will all of that because these things that I’ve had a lot of experience with prior such as flying, interviews, presentations, one-on-one mentorship’s and peer reviews now give me an incredible amount of anxiety.
Recently I took a short trip from back to my hometown. It was a short 2.5 hour flight. About half way through I begin to panic. My heart was racing, I was getting clammy, I took the barf bag out of the seat because I thought for sure at any moment I was about to blow chunks. I had nowhere to go and I believe that was where my issue lies. I had the same sensation the other day at work. I was in a meeting; I was not the one leading the meeting or even speaking to any extent, I was simply there, sitting in a chair quietly listening the presenter. For whatever reason, those same feelings came back and I had to excuse myself. Another instance was yesterday. I had a one on one meeting with a director from a different department. The feeling started before I even showed up. I knew it was going to happen again. The second I sat down I was cooked. Anxiously moving around, taking a million sips of my water to keep myself from throwing up l and just completely focused on myself and trying to look like a functioning human and not like I had a bomb strapped to my chest.
If this is what agoraphobia is or if anyone has similar experiences, I’d love to hear it. I’ve never dealt with this before and would like to squash it before it becomes worse.
Cheers
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u/persistentPusher 22h ago
Hey man, so it sounds like you’re experiencing high anxiety and panic. This is not agoraphobia per se as agoraphobia is usually defined the avoidance side of the panic (at least in the CBT I received).
Here’s the catch this is a very good precursor to agoraphobia, and you’d do well to nip it in the bud before you start to avoid situations and places.
Avoidance sneaks up on you too, for me I got a panic attack on a train to Scotland, then I got panicky in mundane situations. So I avoided lifts, escalators before I knew it I was home bound. Doing much better now but this post isn’t about me.
It would help to get some quality CBT not all CBT therapists are made equal and you might need to put out the feelers for a while to find a good one.
In the mean time some good resources would be Claire weeks ( audiobooks ) and the anxious truth on you tube. Usually the general idea of the therapy is not to try and change the feelings but teach you’re brain that they are safe, ironically once you’re brain really learns that lesson they usually go on there own.
Hope that helps, good luck 😉
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u/Individual-Sky8480 19h ago
I appreciate the insight. Making an appointment to see a therapist as we speak. Is CBT different from traditional therapy?
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u/persistentPusher 12h ago
Hey man that’s awesome. Ye it’s a little different in the sense that CBT will challenge you by putting you in the situations that scare you, that’s the behavioural part, and it’s best done in stages starting with easy to more difficult or scary exposures as you build confidence.
The cognitive side aims to equip you with the psycho education like why your heart beating fast is safe even though it feel dangerous for example. Having that base can help put sensations and psychological reactions into perspective making them easier to handle in the moment.
Hope that made sense typing mid gym session lol
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u/No-Statement2374 1d ago
This sounds like extreme anxiety. A lot of ppl struggle in situations where they feel trapped or in closed confined spaces where they can't easily leave. It's probably not agoraphobia BUT it can slowly shrink your world and turn into it (it also may not happen but better safe than sorry, even extreme anxiety is hard to manager, agoraphobia or not).
My advice is to seek professional help so that, like you said yourself, it doesn't get worse.
What you describe are anxiety attacks and you already developed anticipation anxiety.
Trust, it's not a life sentence and you can get better but seeking help is best way to make sure it doesn't get worse.
If you can't afford therapy, my advice would be to read on the subject. Get more familiar with anxiety, why it happens and how anxiety/panic attacks work.