Dirty Dishes

In the darkest days of my agoraphobia when I was still living in New York City, even washing the dishes was a monumental task. I'm still overweight but at the time was considerably heavier. Walking had become difficult. Any form of exertion was a threat because exertion led to shortness of breath and shortness of breath threatened the dreadful possibility of a panic attack. So the dust piled up on the furniture and the dishes piled up in the sink and the shame rose higher and higher until I was almost literally drowning in it. How lazy can you be, I thought? You can't go outside, you have no work; at least you could keep the place clean. But of course I couldn't.

Even now, despite all that I have written about the subject, I am still only beginning to comprehend the truth of my past. Only as time and increased healing distances me from the situation am I beginning to have even a little compassion for myself, to realize fully how frightening every minute of every day was for me. It was not just going out that was terrifying. It was everything. From taking a shower to washing the dishes to getting the mail to even thinking about walking out the front door. My life consisted of being afraid. For a long time, I thought of my home as a haven - and in some ways it was - but looking back I realize it was less a haven than a cage being constantly circled by monsters of fear. There were very few moments when I felt truly safe. Very few.

I wish I had know about CBT in those bad old days when even my dirty dishes were a source of fear and shame. It would undoubtedly have made the healing process move more quickly and saved me a lot of pain. But then, difficult as it has been, I don't regret my journey. I have learned a lot and hopefully am continuing to do so.

I had my second CBT lesson with Neal Sideman on Friday. It's a great process. He shared with me a technique which he calls the "Panic Pizza." To bake up your panic pizza, you draw a large circle dividing it into 8 slices. On the left side of the pie you put the sensations of panic and on the right side, you put the scary thoughts or beliefs that fuel your agoraphobia. For me the sensations included: feelings of suffocation, rubber legs, chest tightness, rigid muscles, shakiness and I can't read my handwriting for the rest. My scary thoughts notes are worse than my Sensations notes, but included things like: I'll be incapacitated and unable to get help, collapse on the street and be shamed and either ignored or cause harm (tie up traffic, give the medics a heart attack...). My favorite on the scary thoughts list was my old bugaboo of being an inconvenience - or, as I put it to Neal: "How rude. She died."

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