Agoraphobia - The Legacy of Abuse
The legacy of every unhealed verbal, physical or sexual abuse survivor includes diminished self-worth, limited ability to trust, and the burden of a shameful secret she or he cannot express. This legacy leaves the survivor's ability to develop necessary life skills inhibited. She remains co-dependent on her caretakers-her nuclear or extended family, foster parents or her surrogate family, babysitter, doctor or priest-who have frequently become another abuser. In her diminished self-worth, limited ability to trust and the burden of a shameful secret she becomes anxious as to how she will continue managing the rigors of life. Thus, she needs some way to cope with these burdens and anxiety arises. A person may fear having anxiety attacks, 'losing control', or embarrassing him/herself in such situations. Many people remain in a painful state of anxious anticipation because of these fears. Some become restricted or 'housebound' while others function 'normally' but with great difficulty, working gallantly to hide their discomfort.
Agoraphobia arises from an internal anxiety process that has become so intense that the suffering individual fears going anywhere or doing anything where these feelings of panic or feeling 'out of control' have repeatedly occurred before. Once the panic attacks have started, these episodes become the ongoing stress, even when other more obvious pressures have diminished. This sets up a "feedback condition" which generally leads to increased numbers of panic attacks and, for some people, an increase in the situations or events which can produce panicky feelings. Others experience fearful feelings continuously, more a feeling of overall discomfort, rather than panic. Agoraphobia, then, is both a severe anxiety reaction and a phobia reaction, as well as a pattern of avoidant behavior.
The good news is: Emotional, physical and sexual abuse can be healed. Healing takes place when the core issue is addressed. Treating depression, anxiety, panic, or agoraphobia is treating symptoms. Treating symptoms does not heal the internal wounds which the abuse created or change the behaviors the survivor has chosen to cope with the pain, avoid the pain or numb the pain. Using a variety of healing techniques the core wound can be healed, thus the verbal (emotional), physical and sexual abuse becomes a distant memory and the painful aftereffects no longer exist-i.e. the agoraphobia (panic, anxiety, feeling out of control, etc) is no longer needed as a coping strategy.
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About the Author: Dorothy M. Neddermeyer specializes in sexual abuse, incest and physical abuse survivor recovery,
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