Agoraphobia

Lazy.

Disappointment.

Failure.

Quitter.

If you're an agoraphobic, these words might have already been associated with you. They certainly have been for me. They've come from people who didn't understand my phobia; they've come from people who I've explained my agoraphobia to. People see a twenty-year-old who has no job, no social life and very few friends, who barely leaves their house and thinks: what the f***? Adults worry; they tell me to just go for it! You'll be fine! Others my age call me lazy because that's how I look. If I go somewhere, I need literally dropping right off at that location, even if it's five minutes down the road.

So what's it like being an agoraphobic?

When I was fifteen-seventeen, I had a good life. I went to college three days a week; the other four days were spent with various friends, a book club, outings with my family, plans made without a second thought. In June 2016, I finished college already deciding not to go to university. I was content with my educational level--I was done. Little did I know that "done" feeling was going to be very final. A lot more final than I'd ever realise.

On a sunny day in August 2016, I woke up feeling normal, good, happy. I rode the bus to meet my best friend. I had some clothes to take back to the shop and that's when it began. I remember looking at a sunglasses stand, listening to my friend, and then it started. The dizziness, the hot flashes, the pounding heart, the feeling of Oh God, I am going to vomit. I shoved the clothes back into the bag without returning them, muttered something to my friend and high-tailed it right out of the shop. In the city centre, I sat on a bench and inhaled in and out deeply. Shakily, I followed my friend into a convenience shop to find me some sugary drink, thinking maybe I was just suffering from low blood sugar even though I'd eaten and drank already. The shakiness didn't subside, the worry of vomiting was in the back of my mind, so when my friend suggested we go to McDonald's for some high-calorie food, I agreed, thinking I was just hungry. There, the world spun and my body went heavy until my head rested on the table, my eyelids drooping heavily. After the previous episodes I'd recovered within an hour but this feeling hadn't shifted for over two hours at that point. I felt sick, rushing to the bathroom where I kept blacking out. Fair, but I was on the verge of fully passing out. Somehow, I made it home on the bus only to have a lecture about stress and not eating--which, again, didn't apply to this situation.

I thought it was another puzzling one-off until it happened in a restaurant several days later, the night before I was due to fly out to Spain at six am on a family holiday. Those two days combined was the start of my anxiety and, what I realise now, agoraphobia. I feared town because that's where the first episode happened. I feared restaurants because that's where the second one happened. My anxiety worsened over the months. In 2017, my agoraphobia firmly settled in me. Where I'd once had a high social life, I stopped going out. I purposefully fell out with friends just so they wouldn't ask me to make plans. I couldn't walk twelve minutes down the road to a restaurant for lunches with a friend. I couldn't travel on a bus. I could no longer even visit my grandad without my mum coming with me. In 2018, I somehow managed to get a job and never worked full-time because I couldn't mentally commit or cope with it. In November 2018, I quit that job.

Now it's March 2019, I've recently been put on medication for my agoraphobia; I've been told I need counselling to work through the issues. I have all this wasted potential because I can't go anywhere, I can't live freely, I can't do anything with my life. I can't get a good job with good future prospects; I can't consider university or going back to college because the bottom line is I am terrified of anything that requires me to commit to leaving my house. I constantly have people say, "Remember when you used to be able to do.... " and I hate myself so much to reflect on when my life was better, when I wasn't ruined by agoraphobia. Sometimes I can brave town as long as I'm with my sister or mum; even then I suffer mad anxiety over it. I've lost so many friends, fallen out with the ones who've actually stayed, passed by opportunities to live a normal life of a twenty-year-old. Adults constantly say how it's not normal, how they're worried. And whenever I get told I'm lazy, that I suck because I can't do something I feel restricted to do, I spiral into this horrible, deep self-hatred. I'm not lazy; just the thought of walking somewhere longer than I feel able, or riding a bus, or going to a restaurant makes me dizzy and sick. Every time someone suggests doing something I get this pinch of anxiety that worsens and worsens the more I think about it. I could reject the plan and I'll still feel panicked. I've told lies to cover myself up but I'm tired of lying.

I want to be able to say I can't do something because I have agoraphobia and that's okay and have support for that. The more I suppress it or pretend that's not the issue the worse my phobia will get. Agoraphobia is real. It's not a synonym for "laziness" or being a deadbeat. Yes, I can do things; yes there are situations I feel more comfortable in. Yes, I walk my dog every day because that's the only thing I feel 100% comfortable to do but add in someone wanting to meet me on that walk and I'm a mess. I don't know why. Agoraphobia has taken so much of me away, so much of life, until sometimes I look around myself and think, "What do I have left?" I've had pressure from different people to just do something, to stop keeping my friends waiting for me, that they won't wait forever. That puts so much heavy pressure on me. Suddenly it feels like everyone is yelling at me to be better but I can't. Not until I get the help I need.

And if you're a family member or friend who hasn't ever put me down for this, I thank you so much. It's thanks to people like you that I have support, that I know I can recover. More awareness needs to be raised on agoraphobia and not have someone say, "You can't have it because you went out last weekend, or you did that..." I want to acknowledged, helped. I want to live a life I want to again.