I thought i would share some of my experiences of agoraphobia/anxiety and panic attacks with you, along with severe lack of confidence in the way i look. I have been housebound unable to open my front door for over 2 years now. I am starting yet another new therapy in my home and i thought it would be good to get some things off my chest and begin to leave some things behind me. I do not want nor need anyones sympathy, this blog is not for sympathy but if i can help at least one person or make them feel that they aren’t alone, this wont be worthless or pointless.  I would also like to hear from anyone else who is housebound or has been as a result of agoraphobia. I am sorry for any typos :) This is long and tedious but if you are interested in learning a little about me as a person, here it is…

I used to get anxiety attacks even from a young age, but back then I obviously didn’t realise what was going on or what this feeling I was having was exactly.

I can remember as early as age 5/6 crying at school on the floor with my head in my hands, saying the words “I want to go home, I want to go home” over and over. The teacher didn’t quite know what to do but she did eventually send me home, and I can remember that huge sense of relief I felt as I saw my mother pull up to collect me, and I didn’t know why this feeling occurred and why I felt that way. These sorts of events started to become a regular thing with me at school. Panic attacks occurred a lot after this and I was always ill, thinking there was something wrong with me physically, my parents didn’t really know what to do, as I started to not want to go to school and I would kick and scream all the way there, I think they found this very hard to deal with, not knowing if there was something majorly wrong with their child. I spent a lot of time in hospitals/doctors my parents not knowing what was wrong with me. I remember seeing a homeopath, when I was small, as I would always say I had a stomach ache to try to get out of going to school, but I believe that all of the symptoms I was feeling was purely from my anxiety and what I was ultimately doing to myself.

 I remember sitting in my bedroom when I was about 9 around Christmas time, feeling like I didn’t know what to do and all of these feelings that I was holding in, I found hard to let out, or talk to anyone about, as I didn’t know if I was normal. I didn’t know if I was going mad or if I had some sort of illness, but I would worry myself into a state of panic to the point of feeling physically sick.

I always hated school, I was bullied from a young age, this knocked my confidence a lot, and it got to the point where I would literally try and make myself ill so I didn’t have to go to school. I dreaded going to school from the minute I woke up to the minute I went to bed. Id stay up and not let myself sleep so that I could try to get out of going. When I did get to school after crying all the way I would often go straight to the sick bay, where I was a very familiar face. It got to the point where people didn’t believe me anymore at school that I was ill or anything was wrong with me, I think they just thought I was trying to get off lessons, when in fact I loved the academic side of school I was always very into my subjects especially history, English and the arts.

School didn’t do anything about the bullying and I became so dead set on the fact I didn’t want to go.

At the age of 10 things escalated when my friend suddenly died in a tragic skiing accident, I locked myself in the bathroom for days and I didn’t eat. I didn’t go to school for a long time as I was far to grieved to do so. This was an event which affected me on a major level.

I started to avoid social situations, and I was not able to go to large shopping centres without feeling the need to get out of that place and just get back home to my safe place.

I moved schools age 11 to get away from a specific person who bullied me, to have them follow me to my new school to traumatise me in my new school. This was an incredibly hard thing for me to deal with.

I started missing weeks of school, and the more time I spent off school the harder I found it to go back.

At this point I was able to go out to my local town, with my parents as I felt safer with them, but I didn’t like to go anywhere with just friends. I can remember going out in town when I was 12 with a friend and my parents, me and my friend went into a shop together while my parents went to get some food, and as we stood in the queue to pay for something, a sudden rush of fear came over me, I began to feel incredibly odd, my head started to feel abnormal as if I was about to pass out or even go into a fit, I started to burn up and my friend could tell something was wrong. I said I have to get out of here you can pay for your stuff but I have to get out, I became hysterical and all I could focus on was getting out of the situation which was causing me so much anxiety.  I was feeling sick to the stomach and I was unable to walk properly, my chest tightened and I felt unable to breathe. I remember finding my mum and having to sit in the car, while I hyperventilated, I think my friend and parents both were worried and thought I was ill as I sat in the back of the car shaking. I literally thought I was going to die.  All I wanted to do was get home. Relief filled me as we started on our journey home, but this time I was left with a horrible feeling of fear, fear of another occurrence of this feeling. I began to fear the fear itself and I think this was one of the first times that this feeling of panic started to have its serious effects on me. I linked certain situations or objects with the feeling I had experienced, such as the place I felt this way, I didn’t want to go back to that shop, I didn’t want to wear the clothes I was wearing that day, it was all a huge trigger to start myself panicking.  I found myself becoming unable to go out so much and began to make excuses not to go out into social situations.

Age 13 my agoraphobia was increasing but I was able to go out with my parents although I felt incredibly anxious. I was asked to go on television for a singing competition although I was already so anxious about certain situations the whole experience was amazing, I found the travelling hard. It is funny because people say to me it is hard to believe you have anxiety etc because when I am on stage and when I am singing as cheesy as this sounds, I become a different person, its like I can be who I want to be, something takes over me and I forget who I am and I almost forget that I have these fears, people say its incredible that you can do things that would terrify most people yet you cant go to a shop. When I won the whole competition part of my prize was meeting the sugababes, I remember getting to the place in which we were meeting, and I felt the same abnormal feeling that I seemed to be constantly getting now,  I had to go to the bathroom with my mum before the sugababes arrived, and I was feeling so ill, I was becoming incredibly dizzy, and the floor felt like it was moving up and down as if I was on a boat , I felt a constant up and down sensation and I told my mum I didn’t think I could stay to meet the sugababes, but I had to, they were coming especially to meet me, and so I went on with the meet, and we talked for a few hours but I was not able to put this feeling out of my head.  

This feeling increased as I left the meeting, and as we got back to the hotel this motion sickness feeling was getting worse, I tried to lie in bed and I could still feel the sensation, it was petrifying as I didn’t understand what was going on I thought I was developing an illness.  I tired to sleep but I found it hard as I was so scared, I woke up to have the feeling still there, we had to get on a train and I remember standing at the station with this feeling still present, it stayed for days.

 I had so many amazing opportunities when i was younger with my singing, i sang at the clothes show live, and many charity events in front of numerous celebrities, i got to sing on tv several times. I was also contacted by an American producer when i was 15 to sing a song initially written for Avril Lavigne. I still get contacted now but due to my agoraphobia i can’t further my singing aspirations. 

It is amazing what we will give up just to not have to feel anxious.

So anyway those were a few experiences of  my panic and anxiety when I was younger, and although I still did some amazing things before my agoraphobia got much worse, I get this feeling all the time that its sad what I gave up and its amazing what someone is willing to give up just to not feel anxious.  I had dreams when I was younger, these being to become a singer, as it was all I ever did,  I was always performing and I knew it was what I wanted. But after a while it started to become almost painful to dream, I knew that the reality with my agoraphobia getting worse was getting further away I could only get a few miles from my house.

Over the years the distance that I could travel from my home was getting increasingly smaller. I became unable to go out in my little village in the countryside just a walk up the road. I was in sixth form at my school age 16 I became unable to get to school anymore, and people at school had no idea why I wasn’t coming in anymore, I had my work sent home and I taught myself with a little guidance from teachers. I became unable to go to the park quite literally metres down the road. The fear was changing, growing, it wasn’t about being around people anymore just the thought of being out itself was terrifying for me. I couldn’t get in a car anymore, the car used to feel safe to me as it was also part of my bubble my safe zone but it became another place in which I was terrified.

After this my anxiety got worse and I found myself unable to even walk up my drive or open my door.The fear grows and seeps into any crack possible, for instance i cant be left alone in my home and need someone with me, i also am unable to speak on the telephone as this makes me very anxious.

I have self confidence issues about the way i look, and i hate it when people judge me. I believe it is very ignorant of people to judge someone by the way the look or anything else for that matter. People who tell me i’m pretty, although it is lovely of them to say, i do not believe it, no matter how many times they say it or whoever is saying it. Only i can change how i feel about myself, confidence is a key in life. If you have confidence don’t be afraid to use it and shine in life! I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder! 

And that is where I am now with my agoraphobia i have now been housebound for over 2 years unable to even open my front door.

The panic attacks are happening more frequently and I have these in my “safe place” in my own home. I could be sat relaxed watching tv and then suddenly out of nowhere with no known trigger I will begin to feel anxious. Once I begin to feel anxious I fell like I’m losing control of my own body and that terrifies me I fear loss of control. I find myself unable to talk as I am unable to think properly or function. Panic attacks are often mistaken for heart attacks. I feel tightening of the chest and shooting pains in my heart, heart palpitations, shortness of breath feeling like someone pressing on my chest. I shake and am unable to stop even though I am boiling hot, light headedness and dizziness which is accompanied by an incredibly odd feeling that i’m going to pass out it feels like i’m walking on a boat, and the floor feels like its moving up and down. Also the floor feels like its vibrating and moving. I get sharp tingling in my hands, arms and legs which often leads to loss of feeling in  hands, loss of control of legs, and numbness in my face, sweating from palms of hands, derealization, feeling almost dreamy and very unreal, depersonalization as if i am feeling outside myself or like I don’t exist if that makes sense sort of as if I am standing looking at myself but I am unable to do anything, I could only describe it as a sort of out of body experience. I fear loss of control, I get disturbing thoughts, and the classic tension headache which makes me feel like i am about to go into a fit, i am unable to think at all, i go hysterical and start screaming and crying, feeling incredibly sick, my muscles ache, everything around me moves very quickly and i begin to talk very quickly about odd things that don’t really make sense, these are the main things which i experience there are other common things like dryness of the throat but you can get the picture!‬

‪All of these things usually occur at the same time when i am having a panic attack now as they seem to be getting worse and worse, they started out when i was a child as more of a hot sweat shaking heart pains and the feeling of being incredibly scared and not in myself, but now they are at there worst, they have led me to pass out. This terrifies me so much and I fear panic attacks, which I know is a key error in my thinking, I know that the fear of having a panic attack leads me to have a panic attack. But it is so hard to break the cycle.

The thing is that a lot of people can try to understand but no one can fully understand this unless they themselves have gone through agoraphobia or anxiety.

I don’t sleep well now, I am awake into the early hours and usually don’t get to sleep until about 5 am, due to my anxiety.

Over the years I have seen many therapists, they had to come to see me in my home obviously, even though having new people in my home makes me very anxious. I have talked to doctors, specialists in agoraphobia, gateway workers, and hypnotherapists, to name a few, of which nothing has helped me as of yet. I listen to a hypnotherapy tape every night hoping that I’l wake up to a normal life. Even though I am aware that the cure is within me, and only I can really fix this. I don’t believe in taking medication for this, this is my opinion only, but I feel that this would be a quick fix for one, its not sorting out the problem its covering it up, and probably making you more depressed, perhaps doing more damage than good, as well as the fact that I would be too scared to take medication as all of that comes with the anxiety I fear loss of control and would not want anything like that in my body.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to do the normal everyday things that so many people take for granted like go out just to the cinema, or for a walk or go shopping, its so hard to stay positive after so long and having dealt with this for so long even though I know that positive thinking is a must. I do hope that I can get over this.

I am aware that all of this is in my head, which in itself is a scary thought.  I do have hope and I want to get better, surely that should be enough?

I know in depth a lot about agoraphobia and have studied at great lengths over the years. I can think about everything logically, I can say to myself that there is nothing actually scary about the outside world, I am not going to actually die if I step outside my front door. But as soon as I feel the anxiety coming on, all of the logical thoughts go out of the window and I become unable to think logically, I feel trapped, trapped in the fear in my body and I cant get out.

I have had many horrid comments about my agoraphobia, which to be honest don’t help, but what can I do, singing is one thing that makes me happy, so that is why I post videos on Youtube, it is one of the few things I can fill my day doing. So I don’t think I should let people ruin the one thing I do have.

I have had this for so long and it has got to the point where talking doesn’t help me, I am almost bored of repeating my story, as it is the one thing you have to go over and over with all of the drs that I see so that they can get the full background. But I thought this extract might at least help one person? And if I can help one person it will be worth it.

I like to try to help people even though I seem unable to help myself. I don’t want to be patronising though as I know that with this kind of issue, it is very rare that someone can say something to you to click and think yeah actually there isn’t anything scary about this and there cured. These problems are often a deeper issue, which have led to a vicious cycle that is hard to break.

It is sad that as humans we need to experience loss of some kind to realise what we have and to be grateful for everything. For instance I know how much not being able to go out can effect someones life. While most people go out every day doing things that I would give so much to be able to do, yet they are not aware of how lucky they are to be able to do those things as they haven’t ever felt what it is like to not be able to go out. In a way it makes me grateful to have I don’t know all of my limbs, there are people who don’t, so I guess when I do journey out of agoraphobia which I hope I will, I will be an incredibly strong person, who will be so grateful for all that I have.

I have people who love me, and I realise that what I am, or how I am is affecting them and tearing them apart. That in itself hurts me. It makes me begin to wonder, am I a bad person, that I cant even change for someone that I am so in love with.

These are a few of my experiences and a more what id call “nice” version of my battle so far, i have suffered very dark times during my years with anxiety and agoraphobia but some of my experiences i believe shouldn’t be posted on a blog. One can only hope the only way to go is up. 

The next quotation is something i thought of, Jemma means “little dove” which i feel is quite fitting in my situation at my time.

 “I am just a little dove, delicate, timid, trapped in her cage. Won’t someone set her free?”- Jemma Pixie Hixon

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