In the past few months I’ve made some progress so impressive that had I been a bit more sporty, I’d have have attempted one handed cartwheels followed by jazz hands with spirit fingers atop a cheerleading pyramid formation made up of Doctor Who figures and next door’s cat. My depression seems to be under control so the next thing I want to work on is my agoraphobia, or as I like to call it – “GET SOME MILK FROM THE STORE? BITCH HAVE YOU GONE CRAZY?”
I’ve had agoraphobia most of my life to some degree. It’s commonly thought of as a fear of wide open spaces, which of course it can involve (ARG! A PADDOCK! HALP!) but the root (no pun intended) of the disorder is the fear of having a panic attack triggered by a particular setting or event. If you’ve ever experienced a panic attack – with flailing muppet arms, hyperventilating and snot bubbles – you’ll understand the reasoning behind doing all you can to avoid having one.
Agro-phobia. Not quite the same thing. Possibly bathmat related.
Having control over a situation is the single most important thing on my mind when I leave the house. If I can’t be sure what I’m going to encounter then I don’t want to venture out. My home is safe, a controlled environment. If I experience anxiety then I can get into my bed and lay there until it passes. The only place I know you can do this outside the home is a bedding retailer and they tend to frown upon such things. There’s only so many bedside tables you can pretend to be interesting in purchasing before you start to arouse suspicion.
As I’ve mentioned before – I’ve always had an issue with supermarkets. When I was younger I was fine in most other retail environments, I’d just ask a friend if they wanted to tag along and after a couple of visits I was able to go on my own. Nobody ever knew I had a problem, but with most supermarkets I’d become so freaked out I’d not be able to focus on anything properly (why are they always so bright?) and I’d have to leave before someone discovered me in a pile of tinned peas, rocking back and forth and snivelling about how scary washing powder was. For most of the past decade I’ve managed to get by on purchasing things from service stations, eating takeaway meals and having friends and neighbours help out with larger grocery shops when required.
It’s not like I don’t keep trying though. A couple of years ago I even decided to take on the new multi story Ikea. Sure, I had to be let out one of the emergency side doors by a very concerned staff member (I’LL! *gasp* BE! *gasp* OKAY! *gasp* SORRY! *gasp* ABOUT! *gasp* THIS!) but my housemate got some completely awesome tea light candles.
Al-Gore-a-phobia. Understandable, yet different.
This year I completed a six week course of cognitive behavioural therapy with a psychologist and we focused on that most terrifying of tasks – grocery shopping. I can now visit three supermarkets but I can’t spend a lot of time in them. The ones I do visit, I visit on the same day around the same time and tend to only be able to buy the same things. It’s an association thing according to the psych. It’s certainly leaps and bounds ahead of where I was at the beginning of the year but I still have moments where I feel panic start to build and have to drive straight home, leaving my trolley abandoned in the dairy aisle. Yes, I’m that guy.
The most frustrating thing about agoraphobia for me is it’s inconsistency. I worked as a club DJ for over 10 years but now I can’t set foot in a nightclub or pub. A month ago someone asked me via Facebook to DJ an event for them and I haven’t been able to reply. Another person asked me on Twitter and I didn’t want to use Twitter again for six days, because thinking about it just filled me with dread. A year ago I managed to get past that feeling and played to 2,000 people at a Pride event. Now I can’t entertain the idea without feeling overwhelmed with sadness. The fact that I feel like this about something that was such an integral part of my life for so long is breaks my heart. There are days I can’t listen to music released around the period I was working in clubs. It’s incredibly bizarre and I can’t verbalise what the issue is. Nothing happened. I started getting anxious during gigs. Then it became more and more difficult to get to gigs. Like I was walking against invisible resistance in the air, and the closer I got the more my chest tightened until it got to the point I would have to drive to venues early because it would take me half an hour to get up the courage to get out of my car. For me it’s always been an involuntary physical response.
If I could try to explain it – Imagine you sit down to eat a meal and you suddenly can’t use cutlery. Yes, bizarre as it it, you’re in the grip of awful, all consuming fork fear. You’d wonder why, would’t you? You’ve used one most of your life. You’d have no reason to be feeling like this. It’s a FORK. What’s the big deal?
The next night, you’re fine. The night after that you become so panicked you’re too scared to sit at the table. A week later you’re comfortable eating with your family and dismissing your previous fears as a ‘blip’. Another week goes by, you’d almost forgotten about the issues you had, but tonight you’re feeling a little edgy. You dismiss it, but the second you sit down you realise you can’t breathe. You start shaking and begin hyperventilating to the point of passing out. Your family freak out and you’re scared, confused and embarrassed because you can’t explain what happened. Your partner asks you why tonight was such a big issue when you were fine at the last meal and all you can do is cry. You keep trying to get past it but the more you focus on it, the worse it gets, until a week later you’re eating all your meals in your bedroom using only your fingers. Every time someone suggests trying to sit at the dinner table it paralyses you.
Beelzebub, earlier today.
Imagine that happening to you tonight…how confusing it would be. How you’d feel the next day. How something you never gave a second thought suddenly occupies your mind for hours at a time. Would you want to keep sitting at that table, trying to pick up the fork knowing that you could lose complete control of yourself?
That’s what panic attacks do and it’s why people with agoraphobia try to avoid any situation that will trigger one. It’s not the just the situation itself. It’s not just about feeling anxious. Anxiety is for the most part controllable. Panic attacks aren’t. I have a friend that became so terrified in a crowded venue they lost control of their bladder. I’ve dry retched uncontrollably in stores, causing people to yell at me. I’ve started crying in view of hundreds of people while working in a club. I’ve thrown up after leaving a venue more times than I can count. Knowing that this can happen, but not knowing when it will happen is what makes me choose the safest environments time and again. And for me, that’s doing the same thing week in, week out.
While I’ve made some great progress with depression I’ve noticed that I’ve not felt like doing anything outside my normal ‘rituals’ in the past few months and as I mentioned, it’s the next thing I want to work on.
And just as soon as I get out of this cupboard, I’m going to start.