Agoraphobia to Astrophotography: A Recovery Story | EP 322

For 25 years of my life, I struggled with panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD, and depression. I was so anxious that I couldn't leave my house or be alone for more than a few minutes at a time. But last week, I finally did something I've wanted to do since I was 9 years old.

In this episode, I share a personal story - not as a blueprint for your recovery, but as encouragement that anxiety recovery is possible. When I was in elementary school, a trip to the planetarium showed me what the night sky really looks like without light pollution. For decades, I dreamed of seeing that sky for real, but anxiety, fear, and often just being "too busy" (this is dumb) kept from doing that.

Last week, I drove seven hours from Long Island to an international dark sky site in Pennsylvania. For someone who once couldn't drive 60 seconds without having a panic attack, this was significant. I went into the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone service, to finally see what I'd been dreaming about since childhood.

This episode explores what anxiety recovery actually looks like - not learning that you're "okay," but learning you never needed to ask that if you're OK in the first place.

If you're struggling right now and feel like you'll never get better, I want you to know that I felt the same way - and I was wrong. People do get better from anxiety disorders. Maybe you just need to hear a story like this one today. So here it is. I hope it helps.

Resources mentioned:

Free book "An Anxiety Story" available:

https://theanxioustruth.com/an-anxiety-story/

YouTube version with photos and video footage

https://youtu.be/ALxOy-7XRus

The Disordered Podcast (co-hosted weekly show)

https://disordered.fm

The Anxious Truth is a podcast focused on evidence-based anxiety recovery using acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches. New episodes every two weeks.

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Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Transcript

From Anxiety Prison to Freedom

Speaker 1 0:00

I used to be so anxious that I was afraid to leave the house. I would have panic attacks at the drop of a hat, full-blown panic attacks. I was so afraid that I couldn't be left alone for more than a few minutes at a time. But last week I got to do something that I've wanted to do my entire life. It was great, but when I was really struggling, when I was in the grips of anxiety and panic and fear and agoraphobia and OCD and depression, I thought this would be impossible. I did not think I'd ever be able to do this and, as it turns out, I was wrong. So a bit of a change of pace. This week I want to talk about some of my own personal experience in the hopes that it might provide a bit of encouragement. If you're struggling with anxiety right now and you are afraid that you will never get better or never be able to do the things you really want to do, I'm here to tell you that there's a really good chance that you're as wrong as I was. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1 0:58

Back in the day and I mean, for 25 years of my life, on and off, I struggled with things like panic disorder and agoraphobia and OCD and depression. I would have scary, repetitive thoughts about death and existence and the nature of reality. I would be fixated not only on my health and my death and my existence, but everybody that I cared about in the world. I was having panic attacks all the time. I became super fixated on how I felt. I was always worried about what my body was doing and what thoughts my mind was going to make. I couldn't experience regular emotions without them being morphed instantly into fear or panic. I couldn't leave my house, I couldn't be left alone. I couldn't do any of the things that I wanted or needed to do in my life, and it was pretty miserable. Now, that was not every day for 25 years, but big giant chunks of my life were kind of taken away from me because of this particular problem, which is really, unfortunately, very common in the West. If you want to know the whole sordid story of the entire 25 years, I've actually written a book called An Anxiety Story, which you can check out from my website. It's completely free. Just download it as a PDF or an audiobook and check it out. But the bottom line is that when I was struggling so much with this particular problem, I thought I would never be able to do some of the things that I do now, and I definitely did not think I was going to get to do the thing that I finally got to do last week. So let's have a little bit of story time, but before we do that, I want to remind you that my personal experience is not a personal blueprint for you.

Speaker 1 2:34

I am uncomfortable about telling this story, not because it's embarrassing to me, but because I never want to hold myself up as an example of exactly what you should do. I would like to think I'm an example of what principles of recovery you might follow, but what exactly I did is not exactly what you're going to do. That's not fair to me for me to imply that. And because I do write books and I do have a YouTube channel and I do have podcasts and I do have things like workshops and I am a therapist, I have to be very clear here in saying that what I never, ever want to do is be the guy that posts the. Look at me being free. Pay me and I'll tell you how to do that too. This is not about that at all. I'm not even going to mention some of that stuff. All I want to do here is tell you that once upon a time I wasn't sure I'd ever get to do what I just did and I was wrong. And if you're thinking that about yourself and I understand that and I get it you might be wrong too. So let's get to the story.

Speaker 1 3:33

When I was a kid, I always had an interest in space and the universe and I guess I was a bit of a nerd Still am. I'm okay with that and every year when I was in elementary school we would take a trip to the local planetarium. And one year I was probably about nine years old. The guy working the projector at the planetarium did a little intro before he started the show, which was just about the night sky typical grade school planetarium stuff. And I remember him starting with hey, here's what the sky looks like over your house right now, and it's true, that's what was projected over our heads. Then he said this is what it sky looks like over your house right now, and it's true, that's what was projected over our heads. Then he said this is what it would look like if we turn off all the shopping malls. And it got a little darker and there were more sky, more stars in the sky on the ceiling of this planetarium. And he said and this is what will happen if we turn off all the street lights? And it got even darker and there was more stars in the sky artificial sky above my head. Then he said this is what would happen if we turn off the lights at your school. And it got a little darker and there was even more stars in the sky. And finally he said this is what would happen making a joke if we turn off all the lights at all the McDonald's. And it got pitch black and the ceiling of the planetarium was absolutely filled with stars.

Childhood Dreams of Starry Skies

Speaker 1 4:46

Now, I was born in Brooklyn, lived in Queens, grew up on Long Island. I'm, by all means, a New York metro area dude and we have a huge amount of light pollution here. We always have. There's a giant light dome surrounding New York City, so I had never known or seen a sky like that. I had no idea that that's what the night sky actually looks like. Now, if you're watching or listening to this and you live in a place where you get to see that on the regular, I'm super jealous.

Speaker 1 5:12

But at eight or nine years old, that left an indelible impression upon me. I was already interested in the sky and the stars and space and all of those things and I just remember looking up just agape. I couldn't believe that that's what the sky actually looked like. It was full of stars and that day I sort of thought I got to go somewhere where I'm going to see this and for so many reasons and I can get into a whole other video about this I never did until last week. That was decades ago. It was a long time ago. If you're watching on YouTube you see the gray in my beard.

Speaker 1 5:49

Last week I went into the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, to an area in Potter County near Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania which is recognized as an international dark sky site. It's the only one we have in the US, I believe, east of the Mississippi. It's as dark as you could get in the eastern US and I am here to tell you it's pretty dark. It's like nothing I had ever really experienced before Now, for somebody who was once highly agoraphobic, who was constantly worried about how they felt, who was certainly convinced that I always had to be saved from my own body, my own heartbeat, my own breath, my own wobbly legs, my own scary thoughts, my own emotions.

Speaker 1 6:29

I used to interpret being derealized or depersonalized, that state of dissociation, common anxiety symptom. I used to interpret that as the fact that I was disintegrating or slipping away and I was convinced that I would need to be saved or rescued and somebody would have to come and get me and prevent that from happening, that I would need to be saved or rescued and somebody would have to come and get me and prevent that from happening. So going out into the middle of nothing, into the pitch dark, so that you can look up and see the actual night sky the way it really exists, is a terrifying proposition when you're super anxious and you are afraid of how you will feel in any given circumstance. So for an agoraphobic, somebody who suffered from panic disorder or agoraphobia, somebody whose intrusive thoughts OCD, if you will was latched onto the idea that my mind could literally sort of blow itself up and disintegrate when I got too anxious, somebody who couldn't even experience things like happiness or joy or excitement without it instantly morphing into panic, that was such a daunting task Back in the day when I really struggled so much I couldn't get in my car and drive literally 60 seconds down the block without winding up in a blind panic and wanting to run back home and be saved. So imagine driving seven hours from where I am on Long Island into the middle of nothing. We want there to be nothing. If you want to see sky, you want to see stars, you need there to be no people and no development and no streetlights and no shopping malls and nothing like that. You want it to be super dark, and last week I got to do that.

Speaker 1 7:59

Now, if you're listening to this as a podcast, I would urge you to maybe pop on over to my YouTube channel, because I'm going to overlay some of the pictures that I took and some of the video from that event, because it was quite breathtaking. And last week I found myself in the middle of Potter County, outside of Cowdersport, pennsylvania, on a new moon, with an absolutely perfectly clear sky in the pitch dark, on this really lovely farm that this couple operates that you can go and enjoy the sky from. And I looked up and there was that sky that I saw when I was nine years old in the planetarium, except this time it was real. The night sky is full of stars. It's full. There's no empty places. There's so many stars you can't possibly count them. You can see the Milky Way, the backbone of night. I have pictures. I'm going to overlay them right now. It was astounding.

Journey to Dark Sky Territory

Speaker 1 8:53

It was something I waited decades and decades and decades to see Now, admittedly not only because of anxiety and fear, just because of bad choices and not making this sort of thing a priority, but for a very large percentage of my adult life, when I had the ability to do that sort of thing if I felt like it, because you know, grown up and all that I didn't, because I was worried that I would have to check in with how I was feeling and what if I started to have scary thoughts in the middle of these fields and there's no ambulances, and how far is it to a hospital? Ps, pretty far, although that's actually not true. Coudersport does even have its own hospital, but I didn't know that. The point of it was being out in the middle of nowhere, away from my safe place, far away from my safe place, with no easy escape and no rescue available, like no cell phone service, was a terrifying thought. Yet there I was and I want to do it again tomorrow. I cannot wait to go back and do that sort of thing again. I got to experience what the sky actually looks like without all the lights, something that I have wanted to do since I was a kid and wasn't able to do In large part in big chunks of my adult life because I was too worried about checking in on how I felt first and thinking about how I might feel before I actually went out and experienced life.

Speaker 1 10:12

So people are invariably going to listen to this and think well, what did you do? Well, you can read the books. You can go back and listen to all the other podcast episodes. You can listen to the Disordered podcast. I talk about that all the books. You can go back and listen to all the other podcast episodes. You can listen to Disordered Podcast. I talk about that all the time Like the principles we use to overcome anxiety disorders. That's my bread and butter, that's what I talk about all the time. That's what I specialize in my therapy practice.

Speaker 1 10:33

So I cannot tell you exactly, step by step. This is what I did to get me from so afraid that I was stuck in my house to the middle of nowhere, many years later. Of course, that's true. I'm always going to be honest about the timeline. But how did I go from one place to the other? How did I go from one circumstance to another? How did I overcome that? What does that look like? Well, I'll tell you that the bottom line was I had to challenge the idea that I needed to run from myself. I had to at least consider the idea that I needed to run from myself. I had to at least consider the idea that, although the thoughts I was having were very scary and disturbing the sensations I was experiencing were very scary and disturbing and the emotions that I was experiencing were kind of overpowering I had to at least consider the idea that maybe they were safe after all and I could let them happen. So I got here by just practicing, intentionally being triggered again and again and again and again back in the day when I was doing all of my recovery work, and I learned that I don't have to be afraid of myself anymore and that translates into living a life, not just going out to see the night sky, but living a daily life like anybody would any normal person might do, without ever consulting anxiety.

Speaker 1 11:42

I never check in to see if I might be anxious. If I do a thing I might. I'm not immune to being anxious. I'm not immune to feeling stress. I'm not immune to a wide range of internal experiences because I'm a human being.

Speaker 1 11:56

But what does it look like to be recovered? I am often asked. It looks like being able to go out and do a thing that you've wanted to do since you were a kid, and never even once thinking about because I don't have to anymore. What if I get anxious? That's not a thing I have to ask. How am I feeling? Am I going to be okay? How is this going to make me feel? I never ask those questions anymore, and I didn't ask those questions last week. I just got in the car and went because I could and I knew that it was finally time and I didn't want to wait anymore. So anxiety, while it's a part of every human life, never gets consulted. For me, that's what being recovered looks like. So where are the obstacles? Like what did I go through?

Speaker 1 12:42

Well, last week, as any adult working person, especially in the West, where we overwork ourselves and have ridiculous expectations for the way we use our time as a working therapist, I have a very full caseload right. I have many clients that I work with on a weekly basis and I don't want to miss those sessions. I like working with my clients, so in the three or four days leading up to this little break I was really working overtime to try and move things around and squeeze people in and I was jamming a lot of sessions into a short amount of time and, you know, to try and make sure I wasn't missing all of my clients I wanted to try and accommodate as many as I can. I had to pack. I never did astrophotography before so I was trying to learn how to do that, how to take good pictures of the night sky. There was all kinds of stuff that was kind of piled up on top of me.

What Recovery Actually Looks Like

Speaker 1 13:27

So leading up to this trip where we got up at the crack of dawn and started driving because you've got to get out of New York City and if you live around here you know what that means A seven-hour trip becomes a nine-hour trip if you wind up sitting on the Cross Bronx Expressway. So I was exhausted, I was stressed, I was trying to do too many things at one time and I knew I was going to get up the next morning, probably with very little sleep, and start driving for seven hours into the middle of nowhere. And guess what, while at one point I did have a bit of a stress meltdown because I was just at the end of my rope the night before we left even then I was not considering oh, what if this happens while we're in the middle of a field in Pennsylvania and there's no ambulance I never the thought, never entered my mind. So I was able to work through all of the stress and the associated emotions and experiences that came along with that and still get in the car and go on the trip without really thinking about it While we were driving. We were driving through the middle of nothing. We start on Long Island and going through New York City where it's very densely populated, and if you need to be saved, I guess you could be saved, but at no point am I ever thinking I hope I don't need to be saved. Of course everybody thinks that every day, but I don't think it any more than any human being does.

Speaker 1 14:37

And as we got further into central New Jersey and things got more and more rural, I just happened to notice that like wow, back in the day this would have been such a scary place for me to drive alone or otherwise. And then, as we got into Pennsylvania and sort of exited the Poconos region and things started to get really rural, when we started to head sort of northwest up into the northwest corner of the state where it's super dark and very sparsely populated, it got super isolated and super rural. And if you're watching on YouTube and, by the way, if you're listening as a podcast, I'll put a link to the YouTube video in the podcast description. I'll show you some of the footage that I took while driving through these really deserted roads. You are in the middle of driving through just thousands and thousands of acres of state forest and undeveloped land where there might be a little bit of a hunting lodge here and there, or maybe you pass a few people who have built houses next to each other, and then nothing again for another five or 10 minutes and there's no cell phone service and your phone only says SOS on it, which would be super triggering for a very anxious person.

Speaker 1 15:41

So there was the drive through the middle of nothing. It was hot and humid. So when we got there I was in the middle of nothing, in the heat and the humidity, and feeling really uncomfortable. Back in the day that discomfort would have triggered panic and fear and my mind would have started racing and I wouldn't have been able to handle it and I would have wanted to run home or be saved. But all I did this time was sweat, because that's all you can do in the heat and the humidity, and I carried my stuff around the campsite and I started setting up camera gear and I was a little bit nervous because I wanted to get it right, because I never had the opportunity to see that sky and while I wanted to certainly look up and actually see it with my eyes, I also wanted to make sure that I got some really good pictures of it so I could remember it and have something to like take with me as we left. So I was a little bit stressed that, as a novice to astrophotography, I would mess that up. So I was just kind of looping through some of the things and checking the camera, make sure it was right. I was doing a bunch of testing, so there was demand on me.

Speaker 1 16:39

But at the same time I was also able to recognize that I was in a really lovely place and I'll show you guys, if you're watching on YouTube, some of the pictures that I took of this beautiful environment that I was in and, as opposed to being completely fixated on the fact that we were in a remote, sparsely populated area, I was able to enjoy the fact that we were in a remote, sparsely populated area. I was able to recognize that it was dead quiet and that was really great. After a while I was really super happy that there really wasn't much in the way of cell phone service. I didn't want to be contacted, there was nothing I needed to connect to and nobody I needed to talk to.

Speaker 1 17:14

So the difference between back then and now was the things that would have been super triggering I was able to notice as former triggers, because you know that anxiety experience is going to stay with me forever. It's part of my life. But instead of seeing them as triggers, I was able to see them as former triggers and actually appreciate the situation that I was in. What was once terrifying was actually, this time, really enjoyable, amazing how that works. And then, ultimately, I was able to look up at that sky when it finally got dark and experience some really big emotions. Remember, this is something that left a mark on me in a good way while I was a kid elementary school, eight, nine years old and here I am, decades later, actually seeing that sky, and I thought of the people in my life that aren't here anymore, that I would have loved to be able to share that experience with. I should have been able to get to do that with those people, but I didn't, and now they're not here and I'm never going to be able to do that.

Speaker 1 18:12

It was very emotional at times. Sitting in the silence under that enormous canopy of unlimited stars is going to bring some stuff up. I don't care who you are, but instead of being afraid of those powerful feelings, I got to appreciate those powerful feelings and claim them for my own and actually fully have them and know that it's part of what makes me human. It's part of being able to be on this planet until we're not and experience the full range of our humanity. I had the privilege of doing that in an absolute lovely place that I want to go back to today, in this amazing situation that I dreamed and thought about for decades and decades and was finally in. So I think the bottom line here and I don't want to get too poetic about it because I'm not trying to be performative here Again this is not about like, oh, look at me dancing and happy, and like you could be this too.

Speaker 1 19:02

If you pay me, I don't care. If you never pay me a damn thing. You don't have to buy a book, you don't have to buy a workshop, you don't ever have to be a therapy client, I don't care. But if you listen to me tell this story and maybe look at some of the pictures in the video that I'm overlaying on top of it, and you can find a little bit of encouragement, because you're also afraid that you'll never, ever be able to do that, because the thoughts that you're having and the fears that you're experiencing feel like you'll never be able to overcome them or challenge them. Well, I used to think that too.

Hope for Your Anxiety Journey

Speaker 1 19:30

Back in those days, I was constantly asking am I okay? Am I okay? Am I okay? And to some degree, every human being asks am I okay every day in some way. But really anxious people ask it constantly and many people will ask well, I guess recovery looks like going out into the middle of nowhere and looking at the stars and not caring, and that means you learned to know that you are okay. But really, what I learned through intentionally facing my fears and opening myself up to learning from those experiences is I did not learn that the answer to am I okay? Is yes. I actually learned that I never had to ask that question to begin with. That's what a recovered life looks like. You learn that that's not a question that you have to keep asking. That was never the right question. It's a question that your anxious mind will insist you keep asking. But one of the things I might encourage you today, if you're struggling, is what would happen if you stopped asking that question because you recognize that it's actually not a question that even needs to be asked to begin with. Might that put you one step closer to standing in a field looking at the night sky or whatever it is. Your goals are and back in the day, some of my goals were literally just being able to pick up my kids from school, which was not even a mile from my house Goals change as we recover and we get better and we go back to living the lives that we want to live.

Speaker 1 20:59

So, regardless of where you are today, if you are feeling like you will never possibly overcome this, because it's impossible to move through these really difficult feelings, or it's impossible to tolerate things like panic, or it is clearly not the right thing to just let scary thoughts alone. I have to talk myself out of them. I have to argue with them. I was there too, but now I'm not, and that's just because I opened myself to the possibility that following that fear as powerful and real as that fear was was probably not a good idea. And once I accepted that maybe that wasn't the best idea and I started to do things in a different way, well, things began to slowly change.

Speaker 1 21:41

So, again, I was really a little bit reticent to make this episode today and talk about this, because I tend not to want to share my personal experiences too liberally, because that's part of the sort of social media influencer playbook and I don't want to play by that playbook. I only tell you the story to let you know that it is possible to get better, and I used to think that I couldn't do it either. So if you're thinking that there is actually hope for you, I cannot tell you exactly how to do it in a YouTube video or a podcast episode. I can't even do it in 300 podcast episodes, but I can at least give you some encouragement. People do get better. I'm one of them and you could be one of them too.

Speaker 1 22:18

So thanks for hanging in there and, I guess, letting me indulge this a little bit. I wasn't sure whether I should share it, but people seem to feel like it would be useful to hear it. And if you're watching on YouTube, I hope you're enjoying the videos and the pictures that I'm overlaying over the top of my voice. And, again, if you're listening as a podcast episode, I'll put the link in the description so that you can go watch the video if you want to see the pictures and that sort of stuff. So that's it. That's episode.

Speaker 1 22:41

I guess it's episode 322 of the Anxious Truth in the books. I hope you found it helpful or encouraging. I hate to say inspiring. I don't really mean to be inspiring or aspirational, but, if nothing else, validating, because I used to struggle just like you, and now I'm not, so I don't think I'm special. I did it and I suspect that most people will be able to do it if they find their own way. So thanks for hanging out today.

Speaker 1 23:06

If you're watching on YouTube, maybe hit the like button, the subscribe button, leave a comment, check out my other videos. If you're listening as a podcast episode, well, thanks for doing that. If you're new and this is the first time you've ever stumbled upon the anxious truth, well, I hope you found it enjoyable. I promise this channel of this podcast isn't really about me. It's about anxiety and anxiety disorders. So check out the other stuff and, if you really dig what you're hearing and you're listening on apple podcast or spotify, maybe leave a five-star rating or review to let people know why you like it and then other people get to listen to the podcast and maybe get a little help, and that's why I do this to begin with. So thanks for hanging out with me today for 20 something minutes while I told you this kind of silly story in a kind of disorganized way. I hope you got something out of it. I'll see you again in two weeks with the next podcast episode. Thanks a lot. See you later. We'll see you next time.