That title is a bit misleading.

I know how I got here. Initially I let anxiety get the best of me. Then I let panic get the best of me. Then I let agoraphobia get the best of me.

I still make excuses. “One day” I tell myself. It let’s me pound my chest. The facade. I trick myself. “Tomorrow I’ll start”, I’ll say like an overweight dreamer that really doesn’t want to go on that diet.

But I am the one. I’m the one that let it change my life so dramatically that the effort it’ll take to dig out of the hole so cavernous is reason to just. give. up. So I ask myself tonight, who do I want to be starting now. Fuck. I can’t change the past. I think it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when things go bad. Time to make a plan and stick to it.

Join me?

Avoidance Junkie

Got off the bus today. Twice. Nothing more than simply being afraid of my panic. Sucks.

So when this happens the key is to go back and do the same thing 3x. Hell, 10x. So I guess I gotta …

Recovery from agoraphobia – or any phobia for that matter – takes hard work. You’ll never recover if you’re not willing to go through the panic.

Of course I’m talking to myself here. This is easier said than done. I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do it.

Maybe I’ll use this blog to give myself a challenge. Hmmm. Thoughts on a first challenge anyone?

Had my first big panic attack event in a long while this morning. I can wax poetic about it. About how tragic the feeling. The desperation. The utter discomfort. But i’ll just relegate myself to the standard I’ve set in previous entries.

“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.” – Epictitus

I realized this morning that I can be an expert on all aspects of panic and anxiety – yet still be the ultimate incarnation of Willy Loman when it comes to the actual event.

The experience of panic just doesn’t translate very well into words. It’s a beautiful dance between perception and reality. Tragic at it’s peak. You quickly assimilate to the fears as the feelings reinforce your perception. Reality is the loser here.

I didn’t like my panic attack this morning but it is what it is. I’ll have more. I think it’s time to quit *thinking* my way through my panic and start *feeling* my way through it. Words are fine, but words escape when that first burst of epinephrine hits.

It’s just uncomfortable. I will cope.

Avoidance Junkie

… if you think about it, I’m lucky. I can fix myself. I have the opportunity to make myself better.

I have my health. I have a good family. A good job. Good friends. Etc.

My life’s struggle is agoraphobia and the associated panic. If this my big struggle then so be it. I need to seek panic. Each panic attack is more real time evidence that it’s my jumbled perception that causes it – that it’s ok to have them.

It might be uncomfortable – I will cope.

Brian

Conrad Blomberg nails it in this article on why panic attacks happen.

Quick read – check it out.

Avoidance Junkie

Uneventful bus ride this morning. A young woman to my left wearing a green sweater, preoccupied with her iPhone. I’m reading a book. Hitchens. A nice morning.

We pass the last stop before veering off onto a street in which we have to make a left turn. “So, what’s the big deal with that?” you might be asking yourself.

Agoraphobia is all about escape. I *have to* have an easy escape or else I’m *trapped*. Of course, I’m not really trapped and I’m perfectly safe where i’m at – but just the mere fact that I’m not able to leave at will constitutes “trapped”.

If we were in the right hand lane, I’d probably be able to talk the bus driver into pulling over and just letting me out, right? I’ll make up some excuse ~~ “I’m sick and need to throw up, can you let me off here please?” ~~ “Here’s a 20 (dollar bill), can you please let me off here?”

But if we’re in the left hand lane, I can’t get off. It’d be too dangerous given the traffic whizzing by the right side of the bus.

I’m stuck.

Typically I’ll think this stuff and just get a *tad bit* nervous or brush it off. But for some reason today, it hooked me. I went from complete calm to full blown panic in about the span of 5 seconds. Here’s the thought process.

“It would suck to panic right now”
“What if I did panic right now?”
“I’m feeling a bit nervous right now”
“I might just panic right now”
“I need to leave this spot right now!!!” Mind you, I do realize that ‘this spot’, in whatever permutation, is perfectly, perfectly safe.

But I panicked, full blown. My hands raised high in the air to let more air into my lungs. I squirmed in my seat. I probably bumped the woman next to me. I must have. But at that moment I a) don’t care and b) don’t realize it. The blood is rushing from my extremities and to my major muscle groups in preparation for fight/flight. Epinephrine (adrenaline) is released into my blood stream.

I feel like I want to jump out of my skin. Just hanging on by a thought. Salvation in my control. But I dive further.

The bus begins to move and I realize that we’re now turning left and the doors will open soon at the next stop, some 20 yards away. I don’t get off, of course. It was just a test. My stop isn’t for another mile or so. I’ll stay on, knowing that the rest of the way is a trip in the right hand lane.

Avoidance Junkie

I read this on CNN this morning.

With mental disorders, words matter. Big time. And there’s a great lesson learned from the quote below. If you didn’t read on the news, Air Force One was flying low over Manhattan causing a huge scare, building evacuations, etc. This is one persons account …

Linda Garcia-Rose, a social worker who counsels post-traumatic stress disorder patients in an office three blocks from where the World Trade Center stood, called the flight an “absolute travesty.”

“There was no warning. It looked like the plane was about to come into us,” she said. “I’m a therapist, and I actually had a panic attack.”

Garcia-Rose, who works with nearly two dozen patients ages 15 to 47, said she was inundated with phone calls from patients.

“They’re traumatized. They’re asking ‘How could this happen?’ They’re nervous. Their anxiety levels are high,” she said.

We are designed to go into fight or flight when we feel like we’re in immediate danger. In the scenario above, this person actually perceived real danger. It would be abnormal if she didn’t panic.

Panic is not *bad* for us. It rushes blood to our major muscle groups, it gives us epinephrine for more energy, it prepares us to save ourselves in dangerous circumstances. But you have to perceive immediate danger for it to happen.

If the plane was flying at 30,000 feet and she panicked, then yes, it would probably be considered a panic *attack*. But it wasn’t. Many people considered it a real danger. The panic reaction was a correct reaction. It wasn’t an *attack*. It was her body doing what humans have done from the beginning of time … it’s us saving us when we really need it.

Avoidance Junkie

3 blocks. The length of the Broadway Tunnel in San Francisco. About 5 minutes to walk it. Scratch that. 5 minutes if you walk it the way I walk it, which pretty much means I walk then run then walk.

A couple weeks back I lost my sunglasses at a bar in North Beach so I went back the next day to see if luck was on my side and they were still there. They were. “Things are looking up” I thought to myself as I confidently walked into Cafe Trieste for a celebratory latte (to go).

It’s all positive. I’ll drink my coffee and walk home. It’s a nice night, why not. Plus it gives me the opportunity to walk the tunnel – something I always have a difficult time with.

I walked half way into the tunnel. I looked back periodically to check my progress. Wait, no I didn’t. I looked back periodically to see what it would take to ditch this claustrophobic place and head back from where I came.

This is the point where I should mention that by checking for perceived “safety”, I’ve given the fear undeserved credence, making it much more likely that I will panic. (panic of course being the combination of a PERCEPTION of immediate danger combined with bodily symptoms)

I go back. Get about a quarter of the way back to my starting point then turn around again to make another go at it. I get to a point. A point that I translate as “now I’m in it”. Up until I hit that point, I’m safe. I know I can easily return to the start of the tunnel, quickly. But once I pass this point, I’m half way in. I have to go forward. I have to panic. In a tunnel. With walls closing in on me (figuratively of course).

I do this about 6 times and see a few cop cars drive by. I’m feeling like they may think that the guy running around the tunnel in leather soled oxfords for the past 20 minutes might, just might, be a bit suspect. So now I’m thinking about this, ditching my coffee long before, and I bail. I hang my head and walk back. I failed this time.

I walked up the hill, taking the easy route. Then I remembered my biggest regret in life. Avoiding to the point of becoming a severe agoraphobic, an avoidance junkie. No more. I walked back and (this is key) without hesitation (which also validates the false fear) I walked. Ok, I did jog for about maybe 20 yards. But I did it. I walked to the end. I said screw it.

Life’s too short. Screw it. Hmmm, new mantra?

Avoidance Junkie

I couldn’t think of anything better to name it other than that. I hate this post. If you know me personally, this is very difficult for me to put out into the world of 1s and 0s for everyone to read.

I hate this post I hate this post I hate this post. Whew. There. Got it out of me.

I’m not your typical nervous flyer. I’m an agoraphobic. I want to avoid and when I’m not avoiding I want to escape. Life is very manageable down here. But at 30,000 ft +, escape becomes a small inconvenience.

I remember waking up on a cold February morning in Chicago in 2000. I missed my 9:00 flight to Austin because of a multiple lane closure on the Kennedy. “I’ll be on the next flight”, I told my boss who had just arrived from Denver. I had no intention of getting on. I saw a co-worker connecting from Buffalo. I casually walked on the American Super 80. Two hours and thirty four minutes later I was in Austin. It changed my life. I traveled 80,000 miles in the following seven or so months.

On January 3, 2001, I was heading back to Chicago via Memphis and it all changed. I hate admitting this. It tears away at my ego. It chips away at my shell. I’ve only flown once since then. A short trip with my doctor from Austin to Houston and back.

I’m not even going to cheerlead in this post. It fuckin sucks. It has nothing to do with flying and everything to do with agoraphobia. I pretend that I have. Hoping that one day I’ll live the lie long enough that I’ll be in a situation that forces me to put up or shut up, with put up being the victor.

Change the thought and the phobia goes away. Change the perception and panic goes away.

I love flying. I really do. If I let my agoraphobic thoughts rule, I’ll continue to perceive the airplane to be a dangerous place and I’ll never go.

I know how to fix it. It’s not Xanax. It’s not Tequila. It’s not avoiding. It’s facing the phobia. It’s just uncomfortable. I will cope.

AvoidanceJunkie