Being Housebound- My Agoraphobic Experience.

I had trouble seeing a doctor, as I literally couldn't get to one. I had tried many times and had called doctors trying to get them to visit me, be seeing at that stage I didn't have a family doctor they refused, as I wasn't an existing patient. I needed help but couldn't find it. Every time I got into the car and started the engine I would become so dizzy with fear it would feel as though the earth from under me had dropped away. I remember trying to make myself go for walks outside each day, but always as I would get as far as next door the panic would hit. I would turn around and come home in defeat. Every time I turned around I was reinforcing my fear to myself. I was reinforcing the fact that I couldn't do it. Each morning I would wake up and be in somewhat disbelief at the situation I had found myself in. I had the sense that this wasn't me. I would look back on the time in which I had freedom. Where I could spend time outside of the house, where I could visit friends and even just go for a drive. Things that I had taken fro granted and that were previously very simple now felt as though it was a life or death situation. Being severely agoraphobic can be somewhat of a catch 22. I wasn't eating well, if I was eating at all. This in turn would make me feel generally dizzy, which in turn didn't help my anxiety. Exercise helps people with anxiety, and yet I couldn't even walk around the block. To seek help I needed to actually be able to get to a doctor, to practise driving while anxious, I needed to go further first and get petrol. Everything that would actually help me to get better involved, what felt to me, doing the impossible first. Soon I became very depressed and at times towards the end suicidal. Being housebound was an intensely scary, overwhelming and lonely stage in my life.

To be agoraphobic is to suffer from a real condition with real symptoms, physical symptoms as well as emotional ones, which are not only terrifying but also overwhelming. To someone who has never experienced this degree of anxiety out of the blue it is very hard to understand. I lost many friends during

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