Agoraphobia Recovery Part 1: Housebound to Working & Independent Living

In this episode of Unbuckle Your Fears, lived experience speaker and advisor Megan Barrow, shares her story of Agoraphobia Recovery, focusing on the period of housebound to returning to independent work.

She revisits where she was at in her agoraphobia, what she'd tried to recover, finding the right mental health specialist, their treatment plan of medication, CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and exposure therapy, and then starting work again.

She also explains how she thought she was recovered from agoraphobia when she was working and living independently, but she still had phobia avoidance behaviour. In part two she will cover the next stage of her "recovery".

The episode concludes with a question for you to consider.

The book mentioned is "An End to Panic: Breakthrough Techniques for Overcoming Panic Disorder" by Elke Zuercher-White.

If you have any feedback, topic ideas or questions, email admin@unbuckleyourfears.com

For more information, head to https://www.unbuckleyourfears.com/

Follow on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/unbuckleyourfears/

Transcript

Megan Barrow

Hi, you're listening to Unbuckle Your Fears. I'm Megan Barrow. I'm a lived experienced speaker and advisor sharing my story and experiences of agoraphobia, anxiety, panic, and phobic disorders, depression, suicide, and complex trauma.

(00:06:05):

In this episode, I'll be sharing my experience with agrophobia treatment and recovery. Let's put recovery in quotation marks. But before I begin, a bit of housekeeping. I'd like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people as the traditional owners of the land I'm coming from today, which is in Melbourne, Australia. Also, I'd love if you could support my advocacy and podcast by subscribing on your favourite podcast platform and giving me a rating. And you can also follow me on Instagram, which is @unbuckleyourfears. That's where I mainly post. It's a little bit haphazard, but I try and share my everyday life and try and provide hope from where I've come from with agoraphobia. And if you want to check out some of my journey, you can also head to a website, unbuckleyourfears.com.au. Again, I'm a bit haphazard there at the moment and it will probably end up somewhere else, but for the moment, that's where you can find some of the resources I've actually used.

New Speaker (00:07:12):

So let's dive into this episode's topic, which is the one that I am most asked about when people find me and direct message me, which is usually on Instagram. Sometimes it's other places or people find an email or an old video I've done, but agrophobia recovery. So I share my story these days. I'm really well in my definition of recovery, so we'll touch on that in a little bit. But I have people reaching out in the depths of agoraphobia or what they perceive as agoraphobia and a limited life and independence. And they ask, "How did I get well?" There's a lot of despair and I totally get it. I have been there.

(00:08:22):

I have been there and I understand how isolating, how terrifying, how difficult it is. So this podcast is very much aimed at people with agoraphobia as a start point, because that's my absolute passion. There is definitely people out there talking about agoraphobia recovery and anxiety, but I do think a lot of it is simplified. So I'm actually going to spread this topic over two episodes to do it justice. And it's even my understanding of my recovery has grown the further I move away from it. So there's definitely two parts where I ... So part one will cover the initial stages of treatment from housebound agoraphobia and getting some sense of independence back into my life. Then part two will cover the next 10 or so years where I would dip in and out of agoraphobia, but wouldn't define myself as agoraphobic because I wasn't housebound, but I definitely was still agrophobic.

(00:09:57):

So for a bit of a recap, if you've landed on this podcast here, and there's a bit of an introduction episode in episode one of my story, but to recap the agrophobia, I had complete two years where I was pretty much couch bound, very much housebound. Now, people that are agoraphobic or people who are carers of people with agrophobia will understand that doesn't mean that I didn't leave the house, but when I left the house, it was with complete terror, in complete panic, and it was always with someone. But if there was something that had to be done, for example, Christmas or getting to a psychologist or whatever it might be, and even loved ones pushing me to, "You need to come shopping for Mother's Day. We're going. I'm going to help you. " So as an example, but it was horrible. It was terrifying.

(00:11:10):

But most days in those two years, I had trouble even getting off the couch to go to the toilet, that I was terrified if I moved my body that something would happen. So I had cocooned myself in such fear to protect myself, and now I realize I was also in the depth of trauma, but I was protecting myself, and that possibly relates to a lot of people who have agoraphobia, or were even sort of working on their agoraphobia and sort of starting to unpack how it happened, why it happened.

(00:12:03):

I very much tried to get well in that period. And before I move on, I should say too, that I actually had agoraphobia for three years, but I'm concentrating on two years because the third year was when I started treatment, but even in the treatment, I was still pretty much agrophobic in terms of housebound agoraphobia. So yeah, I certainly tried things. So unfortunately, by the time I had agoraphobia, I had, apart from the traumatic situation I was dealing with, which I will not go into because there's people involved and it's complicated, right? I guess you'll understand that. It'd be so much easier if I could talk about it and people would be, "Oh, now I understand how you ended up there, but just trust me.

(00:13:11):

" But I had been experiencing major panic attacks for three or so years, and I went to seven doctors thinking I was having a heart attack, so mine manifested mainly in chest pains. So really looking back, that was trauma, a trauma response, chest pains, and then everything else followed with the inability to breathe, feeling out of body, feeling dizzy, gasping for air. I would get pain and tingling in my arms, pretty much all the checklist of panic attack symptoms. But I went and saw seven doctors thinking there was something wrong with my heart. A couple of times I actually went thinking I was having a heart attack, never went to the hospital, which is an odd one, but I think the thought of that even terrified me more, but ended up the GP initially on my own. Then as they got worse, people would come with me because I was too scared and not one of the doctors diagnosed me with a panic attack, not one.

(00:14:28):

Had lots of tests with different GPs. One GP said it was all in my head and I was hypochondriac and looking for attention. The closest I ever got to any sort of advice was one GP who was down the track and he knew how many GPs I'd seen. And he said, "Look, I don't know what it is. We're hopeless when it's sort of outside our checkbox what to sort of diagnose people with, but I do wonder if you're hyperventilating." So he suggested a paper bag, blah, blah, blah. So that was probably the closest. Anyway, by the time I ended up with agoraphobia, I'd resigned from work. I was 23, so to give you some perspective, and it's 1995. So as I tell my story, and as I share stories on episodes of this podcast, I'm coming from a perspective of a lot of lived experience and life experience.

(00:15:30):

I'm now 54, so this is 30 years ago. So I have seen the roller coaster, so I have a lot different perspective than I did say even five years after agoraphobia recovery or housebound recovery. So I ended up diagnosing myself with panic attacks.

(00:15:57):

Once I realized I had agoraphobia, my dear mum went and got books on agoraphobia and I realized, oh, they're talking about these panic attacks. So by the time I had agoraphobia and I was cocooning myself, I was really far down into, I'd been trying to sort of ... I kind of have this image right now in my head and a content warning. I don't want this to be an emotional response for anyone, but I kind of have this vision of me sort of in the water and asking for help and I've got my arm up and I'm saying, "Please help me. I know that I'm not doing so well in the water and I feel like I'm drowning." And everyone's kind of walking by me and saying, "Oh, I can see you're struggling, but yeah, you're in the too hard basket." So ended up with agrophobia, not to repeat myself, sorry, but ... And I should say as I'm talking this, even though I talk a lot about it, I don't dive into it into this level.

(00:17:17):

So I'm really, and I'm very hard on sleeves, so I've got all the images in my head. So bear with me. It's actually quite emotional to be doing this episode. So I really hope it resonates with people. But I had two years where I pretty much had no existence.

(00:17:39):

Having a shower was an achievement. There would be days where I would look out the front door and wonder if I could get the mail, and that was probably 40, 60 in terms of getting it versus not getting it, which was maybe 10 steps to the mailbox. I lost a lot of relationships. The friends that I had pretty much didn't understand, just saw me not seeing them and not coming to them, and they kind of got sick and tired of it. So I was starting to live a very lonely existence. I lived with my mom and sister at the time. They both had boyfriends. They would be off with them. There were a lot of weekends where I left completely on my own. Every weekday I was on my own.

(00:18:37):

There was a lot of despair, depression, and suicidal thoughts in there, which I won't go into detail. At about the two year mark though, after trying, I sort of grabbed books on the topic. Now this is 1995, so there's not really any internet. So it's not today where you can jump online, see social media posts and go onto online forums. I didn't have a computer, but 1997, I decided a couple of things that I would get a computer and access the internet thinking there must be sort of chat rooms or sort of resources for agoraphobia. And I went to a GP. It was a surgery I'd been to off and on for a long time, but it was a new GP and I went and saw her and said, "I want to get well. I need to get well. I want to get my life back.

(00:19:48):

You need to find me an expert in agoraphobia and anxiety." Now, I had seen to another GP who was then on maternity leave who never returned. So the GP I refer to, I'm still seeing today 30 years later, so she'll still recall me coming in asking for this expert. But the previous GP, we had tried a psychiatrist and they weren't very helpful and I felt really uncomfortable with them and they didn't seem to really know anything except the baseline. And I should also say I also in this two year period, one of my only constants was seeing a psychologist and she was amazing. I still see her 30 years later. I haven't seen her consistently in 30 years, but I still do see her, but we were dealing with so much trauma that ... And agoraphobia and anxiety wasn't her expertise and she was quite new to the game too.

(00:21:03):

So yeah, so I needed an expert. Like I said, I'd looked at books, I tried meditation, I tried all these things that everyone said, "This will help you. " And I don't know if this will resonate with people, but it felt like every time I tried something that everyone else swore by, I would feel defeated when it didn't click.

(00:21:34):

And then that sort of cycle of despair and feeling a burden just would come back and reinforce in my brain. So it felt like a vicious circle. So I trotted off to see this psychiatrist. So my doctor did find someone she called me and I had all these criteria she remembers. She's like, "You wanted a female and you wanted this and blah, blah, blah." And she'll say that she ended up with about two pages of research. So she is an amazing GP and she was determined to help me. And we found this psychiatrist in Melbourne and she said, "Just go. Just try." And she was also really wise in saying ... So she knew that I'd seen another psychiatrist and it hadn't worked. And she said, "Just bear with that sometimes these things take time, that you might see someone if it doesn't gel, which we find someone else, but this person looks pretty good.

(00:22:38):

He's an expert. The clinic has experts in various fields. Go try them out, see how you go. " So to say that I was terrified going is an understatement. And I have an image right now. So these are those trauma responses where you just remember where ... You can remember the actual thoughts you were feeling in a moment. So I'm in the car with mom, mom took me and I am terrified, but I was determined by this point to get my life back. So let me just touch on that for a moment because I can, again, remember the very moment I can remember where I was sitting in the house. I was on my own on a weekday and I just decided that, and I can't remember what the catalyst was for the thought, but I was 25 by that point and I remember thinking, this can't be my life.

(00:23:49):

I am just determined to do whatever, to not have this be the rest of my life. I can't live like this. I have to have some normalcy in my life. I want to be ordinary. I just want to fit in. I just want to speak to someone on the phone, again, terrifying, and catch up with family or whoever and say, "Yep, I'm working. Everything's normal." Not the poor Megan, she can't do anything. She's so unwell. I was just determined that ... And I could see that if I didn't do something, that could have been my life.

(00:24:34):

I knew it was going to be hard. I'd tried. When you have panic attacks and you try what you understand to be exposure therapies or you read books or you see it today on social media, and that seems to be a lot of what people still contact me about. I'm trying, but I just can't do it. So on that, there is no easy way out of this, I'm afraid. If you're listening to this and for me to tell you that there's some magic formula of agoraphobia recovery, there isn't one. I hate that it is the worst thing to have to tell people. I wish there was. There is nothing but terror and exhaustion and fear and everything involved of the negative kind in getting well, but I'll quickly caveat that with it is also very quickly the most exhilarating and joyful and grateful experience of my life as well.

(00:25:55):

So I end up with this psychiatrist. He's an older gentleman and he's been doing anxiety and agoraphobia and panic disorder and panic attacks for about 20 years at that point. And I walk in and I've got a water bottle with me in my bag, a handbag, and I sit down and he said, "Oh, you've got your water bottle and your little bag with you. " And I said, "Oh, is that something?" And he said, "Oh, that's very common." Never touched on it again. Don't worry for all those ... Oh, I've mentioned it in another episode. Don't worry about this stupid water bottle theory about don't take water bottle and security tools, absolute rubbish. I get so angry with that. The support tools, whatever. My psychiatrist noticed it. He said it was comment, didn't say anything more about it, okay? So I sat there, he got a bit of a background of me and he went into detail like, "And tell me about your family tree." I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." Well, two of my aunties had panic attacks clearly and my nana has fears and my papa was scared driving on the highway.

(00:27:10):

Then on my other side, there's alcoholism and, "Oh, there was another suicide attempt over here and blah, blah, blah, and this parent, blah, blah, blah." And he looked at me and said, "Excuse language." And I'm pretty sure I might be making it up that he said this, but he pretty much said, "Well, you were fucked, weren't you? " And I just laughed. I was like, "Okay, this is the kind of person's going to be that just pragmatic as anything and just really does it as it is. " And you know what? That actually gave me a real sense of freedom that it wasn't something that I was making up, that the genes in my family tree are not the best when it comes to mental health, so there's a bit of a predisposition to it all. And I'd kind of thought about that, but to have a psychiatrist say that was so freeing.

(00:28:11):

And then what he did was go through the plan. So he gave me a worksheet to take home and said, "Right, this is going to be the plan and it's going to be three stages. It'll probably be medication. Then we're going to start CBT, which is cognitive behavior therapy, and then we'll move into exposure therapy." And then he said, "I will get you well again. I will get your independence back if you stick with me and the plan. What I won't guarantee is that you won't have another panic attack. I cannot guarantee that. Most likely you will, but recovery will be, " and I'm paraphrasing here, but recovery will be when you have a panic attack, you'll know what it is, you'll manage it, and you'll keep going. And I remember sitting there thinking, "That's just impossible. There is no way I will be able to live with these panic attacks and this fear and be okay with it.

(00:29:25):

" And then he went on to tell me a story of one of his recent clients and he said she came back for a catch up or check in and she was saying that she was on the train and she was in the underground and she was reminiscing how she never thought she would ever do that again. And the train stopped, so it got stuck, not majorly, but like five minutes or whatever. And she told him how she just sat there and And just was okay and sort of almost meditated on the fact that she was feeling absolutely calm and how far she'd come. And I just remember again thinking that I just can't imagine that. That's impossible. I'm different. Everyone that touches base with me has that kind of angle of, but I'm different. I'm unique. My circumstances are different. My agoraphobia is worse.

(00:30:31):

I'm afraid it's not.

(00:30:35):

You might have a longer experience with agoraphobia. You might have different trauma, but the actual fear for me was still that 15 out of 10. You may as well have told me to jump off a cliff without a parachute. So I kind of left. Oh, I better not forget this big bit. So he did put me on medication and it was a medication that is very well known that I'm no longer on, but a highly addictive medication. And he brought my mum in and he said, "Look, I'm going to put her on a medication." And he said all the pros and cons. So he really did his diligence and he even said, "Look, there's a chance you'll be addicted for the rest of her life. There's a chance that if she comes off it, she might end up worse." And my mom instantly went into mum mode and said, "Oh no, she's not doing that.

(00:31:41):

No way." And he looked at both of us, but then to her and said, "Okay, can you tell me what sort of life is she living right now?" So he really went into, "This is serious. I am not prescribing a medication for the fun of it. We're at the worst of the worst." And that's what he told me years later that spoiler alert, I kept with him, but that I was as bad as you can get with agoraphobia.

(00:32:18):

So we went on the medication and it was always up to me whether I wanted to increase it. I sort of stuck to the original dosage. And I should also say I was on another medication that I think a GP had prescribed, or maybe it was through the psychiatrist, the other psychiatrist. And he was like, "Oh no, that's hopeless. That's not helping you with it. " And I said, "No, it's not helping me. " And I will also say, so this medication, whilst it's well known and a lot of people take it when they're feeling anxious, this was prescribed just every day, couple of times a day at a certain dose. And would that be prescribed today? No, but we're talking 1997. Okay. So in fact, it's near impossible to get a script these days in Australia anyway.

(00:33:13):

So off I went and that was pretty much it for the first session. And he asked me to get a book, a book I highly recommend. I'll put in the description for you, but I have recommended it on Instagram before. And he's like, "Read through the book and I'll see you in two weeks." So that started the relationship of a fortnightly appointment. The next week we touched base and he asked me how I was going. So what ended up happening was for about the next four to six weeks or four sessions, maybe six sessions, it was touching base, asking how I went. I would bring up things that I thought were really unusual or a feeling or a train of thought. And he would get up from his desk, head off to his filing cabinet, sort of flick through his folders, and then he would give me a handout and say, "Take that home and read it.

(00:34:24):

" And it'd be exactly what I just said. So I was uncovering that everything I was going through was very normal for people with agoraphobia. It was research. There were experts that were talking about it and there were solutions to it. So we started the cognitive behavior therapy, which in very simple terms is retraining your thinking. It's challenging your thinking. And I'll dive into that in another episode. And you can also head to unbuckleyourfears.com.au. I've actually transcribed all of the notes, handouts that he gave me. So he gave me permission to do that. So all the theory is there. I've also got transcribed all the notes. So every week he would give me a little handout of his notes and what I was to work on or any key takeaways, which was, I've still got all of those, still working out what to do with those.

(00:35:22):

But actually next year will be 30 years. So maybe that's something I need to do every fortnight. But I have, as I say, popped all that onto the website, unbuckleyourfears.com. Au.

(00:35:39):

So up to this point, there's a lot of what's the CBT phase on the internet right now. You can find it all. And there's lots of social media posts on it. There's a lot of self-appointed experts. Some are really good, some are not so. They're just self-appointed, but there's so much theory out there. I don't even need to tell you the theory. What's the point? There's just everyone is sharing it and they love not attributing. They sort of talk like it's their theory. None of it is their theory. None of it. It's someone else's theory that they're just sharing and making money from, but that's a whole other topic. But what I would say is the key to it all was the exposure therapy. And the key for me was, and up to this point, it was great to say to someone and an expert to backback my thoughts and that I was unique or that mine is more difficult or but I, but I, and he would just be able to tap it back to me and say, "No, actually." Or, "No, you just need to think of it this way." And he was very solutions based.

(00:37:04):

So he wasn't like my other psychologist who I had to stop seeing just to stop different information coming from different people, but unlike her where I could just talk and she would listen, this doctor was very much, "I'll listen to you for a bit, but we're not going to get bogged down into it. We're going to get straight into the, well, what are you going to do? " So if I was worried about something, like I'm thinking early on, there would have been a long weekend and I'm like, "Okay, I'm really scared about, I'm going to be on my own." And I always sort of end up in panic attacks and absolutely terrified. And he's like, "Okay, so what's the plan? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Okay, we need a plan." So if you're feeling nervous and anxious and panicky, what are you going to do to disrupt that?

(00:38:01):

What activities are going to keep your mind distracted, he would say. Again, I've seen someone say that's a negative thing, absolute bull crap.

(00:38:12):

Just what are you going to do to keep busy? Because the point is, people that don't have a panic or phobic disorder, which is what he diagnosed me with, they're just going around their day. They're not thinking about, am I going to panic or am I going to die or am I in search or fear? They're just going about their business. That's what he wanted me to do. And that took practice in saying, "This is distraction. This is a strategy." But the idea is that eventually it just becomes second nature, that you're off naturally being distracted because you're doing things. When you're not doing anything and you're in a phobic response, that's what you focus on.

(00:38:55):

So it was very solutions based, and that was really helpful in terms of getting an expert. But with the exposure, the real benefit ... So he'd given me homework up until a point and sort of said, "Right, so you have to start walking. You're going to start walking around the block.That's what you just have to do. Walk around the block." I had a dog, walked around the block. And those things were such major achievements. It was just, I hadn't been able to ... You start with the mailbox and you get to the end of the street, then you go around the block, you understand the concept of exposure therapy. But I ended up ... I was starting to feel comfortable in the sessions each week. And I rocked up one day, still with mom, obviously, and he pulled mom in after we'd had a bit of a chat and he's like, "Right." And I'd had a really bad week and I'm like, "Oh, he's going to talk to her about my bad week and how I've really struggled with my panic." And he's like, "Right, so you guys are going to go for a walk up the street." And he told us where to go, this little shopping mall, maybe 300 meters up the road, right?

(00:40:11):

You're going to walk along a really busy road in an inner city, Melbourne location and you walk up together, then you're going to sit down, Megan, your mom's going to disappear and do some shopping and you're going to buy a coffee or a drink or whatever and sit down. I'll give you a magazine. You're going to sit down there for 20 minutes and sit there on your own, just like an ordinary person. And I just said, "I can't do that. " And my mom said, "She can't do that. " And he just smiled and said, "That's what she's doing." Now, I think there's that point where you just have that determination, and I think that's what I'll say, that you just have to be determined to do. I was ready to do whatever he told me to do, so I did it and I was terrified, terrified.

(00:41:10):

I remember walking down this road and every step I was like, "I'm going to turn around. I just have to turn around." And then the next step would be, "I'm about to collapse." Next step would be, "I'm about to die. I can't do this. I can't do this. " But I just kept moving with every step. I just kept going. I felt very disassociated, but I was like, "Just keep going. " That was one of the mottoes, "Keep going".

(00:41:42):

And I did it. And I remember sitting at this little cafe, so mum cheated. She did help me order a coffee, or it wouldn't have been a coffee, whatever it was. And she sat down with me for a second, so I was like, "Oh, she's going to sit with me. This is good." And then she did the hard thing. She didn't want to do it. And she's like, "Okay, I'm going to leave you now." It's okay. And it took a while, but the idea is that understanding that the panic rises and falls ... So again, I'll do other posts on this, and I think I covered it in episode two as well, but the panic rises and falls and it's noticing that. And I was like, "Okay, I'm noticing that it's falling. Okay.

(00:42:34):

Okay." And then I got a sense of immense pride and joy, doing something that people just take for granted. And I knew this was massive. Mum came back in about 10, 15 minutes. She probably didn't stay away 20 minutes and later she told me how she just kept checking on me. She was so worried. She didn't go off shopping. She didn't go far and she just kept looking around the corner to see I was okay. Bless her. And then we walked back to the car and I was like, "I just can't believe we were in disbelief. What?" And I remember my sister was overseas at the time and I'm like, "I sat at a cafe all by myself and she squealed." She was so excited. People who knew how I wasn't living, this was massive.

(00:43:36):

It was also terrifying knowing this was now going to be my journey, that I would be doing exposure therapies from now on, or exposure sessions. But what I never knew was what I would do each week, so he never planned it. I'm a smart man, right? Why plan it? I'm just going to get anxious about it. Does that sound familiar? You're just going to get so anxious about it. So I had no idea what it would be. And every time I felt in a comfort with something, he would jolt it. So the next session was a big jump. This was on a tram line. If you know Melbourne, we have trams. So he's like, "Right. So this week, what you're going to do is you're going to go on the tram with mum. You're going to go up." It was probably a 15, 20 minute tram ride to a really major shopping area, very glitzy shopping area in inner city, Melbourne, and you're going to get off and you're going to buy yourself a treat.

(00:44:42):

I don't care what it is. It can just be a flower. I don't care. And that was the other point with the cafe. He was like, right, you're going to acknowledge what you've done. You're going to give yourself a treat. And I did. I bought myself flowers in this little shopping mall. And I still remember, and this might be a blast from the past, and I think the shop still exists, but I went to Sports Girl. So we did, we ended up on this tram. I hadn't been on a tram in years and again, terrified. Mum was with me, did it? And again, that exhilaration of doing it was just beyond. Then the next week, so we did that a few times. Then all of a sudden it's like, right, no, now you're going on separate trams. Mum will stay behind. She'll come about half an hour later.

(00:45:34):

I'm like, "What?" So you're getting the idea. He would just spring on me and the homework was to match it. So then it was about, right, we're doing this work, but you need to replicate and do things and have a checklist of what you can do and grab people that can help you. So I had people, cousins and family members and a couple of really good friends that would help me. So it might be they came and picked me up and would go to a cafe close by, but again, terrifying. I'd then done these things in years, but the idea was to just keep pushing myself.

(00:46:16):

In the end, like within six months, the challenge was to come in on my own. You're going to come to a session on your own without your mom. So she would drive me and we planned that one out obviously, but mom drove me to a tram stop, caught the tram in, which was probably 20, 30 minutes. And then I walked up from the tram stop and he certainly said, "So what are you going to do on the tram?" Right. So each exposure he would be right. "What's the plan? How are you going to sort of manage your panic?

(00:47:01):

"And he would come up with ideas like, and again, I covered this in episode two, but distraction or counting games, for me, music is everything. So I had a Walkman, so it was still a cassette walkman, or maybe it was a CD Walkman at that time. So I knew music would help, but I probably had a magazine with me too to flick through. But again, I did it. So I was terrified with every single step, terrified, like 10 out of 10 panic attacks, but I was just determined that this is what I have to do. There's no way around it. I want to get a job. I want to be able to leave the house. I want to be ordinary. I want to be normal, whatever that means. The only way to do it is to do ordinary and normal things. And at the moment they're terrified and the idea is that they'll get less terrifying as we go.

(00:48:00):

And that's what happened.

(00:48:03):

So I was going to sessions on my own and then within a few months, I ended up getting a job. And there's a bit of a story to that, which maybe I cover on another time because I'm realizing this episode's a little bit long. Sorry. Luckily we've popped this into part one and two, but yeah, I got a job and it was a massive leap of faith, massive. So the quick story is that I was on sick benefits, healthcare benefits from the government for not working, almost like normal unemployment benefits, but it was for illness. And it was always so hard to get this authorized, not from my GP, but the authorities. And I remember one time I had to go into the government agency and prove that I had agoraphobia. How do you prove that if you have to go in? That's those days where there's no Zoom, right?

(00:49:16):

So they actually offered at the same time, they're like, look, your benefits have to be renewed. And it was about every six months, I think, I had to do it. But we have this job group. If you think you're ... Where are you at? Do you think you might be ready to return to work or want to be supported in that? And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. Let's go for it. Just another exposure session. And that's what I did. So I'd been practicing with exposure on my own, some driving. My driving's one thing that I've never fully got a handle back on, but I've been practicing driving around the back streets and with people, a couple of main roads with people. But to get to working these classes, for better want of a word, I had to drive because my mom and sister worked, so I just had to get there on my own and there was no easy public ... There was no tram.

(00:50:21):

So yeah, I ended up practicing driving. It's about a 10 minute drive, but it wasn't that major in terms of traffic or main roads or traffic lights. So I did it, and then I did these sessions. And again, I was so nervous and panicky and 10 out of 10, but did them. Each session got a bit easier. I think they were like two or three a week, for maybe two or three weeks. I can't remember. Then after that, I saw a job. So they were amazing and there were other people that were unwell or had health issues, no one with agoraphobia, but still a really compassionate group led by compassionate facilitators. And even one of the people actually helped me drive to my psychiatrist one session. He's like, "Do you want to practice your driving? I'll go with you. " So must say my doctor was unimpressed that this guy turned up to this session and he's like, "Who are you?

(00:51:25):

" And he was like, "Oh, I don't like this. " But anyway, so yeah, from there I saw a job through a family friend. He was shocked to hear from me, but his business partner actually gave me the job and smoking mirrors that I called up my ex- boyfriend to take me to the interview and he, bless him, took me.

(00:51:57):

He couldn't take me home and I was like, "I'll just work it out. " And someone ended up giving me a lift home. I can't remember who, I think it was the receptionist, but who I was going to be replacing. But anyway, I ended up there. That's a whole other story about workplace and health and how I got back into the workforce, which is really hard, but that's a whole other episode. But you're getting me early on in this podcast where there's so many stories I can be telling you. But yeah, ended up getting the job, started really quickly. So it was sort of, I think that was a Thursday night. I started Monday and I just remember almost vomiting. And I drove to this job. It was a little bit further than that work course and I was driving and I just felt like vomiting, but I did it.

(00:52:49):

The second day I was vomiting again thinking, "Oh my God, I can't do this. " And I just remember my mom sort of really concerned, "What's wrong?" And I said, "I'd sort of got myself in such a state that I was vomiting." And she's like, "Look, just take..." I was like, "What if I don't last?" And I was already thinking of letting everyone down and not sort of lasting and failing. And she said, "Just take it day by day. Just get through today. That's all you focus on. Just get in your car and get there. That's what you focus on. " Such the best advice. It's something I still do to this day. It's something I tell other people, "Just take it day by day." With anxiety, you think way too ahead. So that's what I did. And a year later, I was thriving. I made some good friends there.

(00:53:46):

I was going out at night, not all the time, but it's one of those things that once you start something and you just ... It's the adage of ... It's like any training. Let's say it that way. It's like if you want to run a marathon and you've never run before or jogged before, you're going to start with running a block. For me, it's probably running half a kilometer, 500 meters, whatever that is in other measurements, wherever you're listening, but you don't just say, "I'm going to run a marathon." But then you build confidence and then it's like, right, I have to push myself. I have to go further. I have to go further. And now, okay, I might start on flat terrain, then I have to try some hills, and then I need to maybe train in different temperature, and I need to do different sort of routes.

(00:54:50):

It was very much like living that once I started and built some confidence on something, everything else became a bit easier. And by the end of 12 months at this job, I was feeling really confident my driving had expanded. I couldn't drive everywhere, but I could be independent. I could drive and shop on my own. I could catch up with people. I could go to the movies. I remember going to things like the ballet with my mom, things that ... And still things that was nerve wracking. I would be on an aisle seat. I still use an aisle seat for goodness sake. Who cares? But I was definitely nervous and sort of thinking, "Am I okay? Am I okay until you start enjoying it? " But I was pushing myself. I was doing things that I'd really wanted to do again. I'd meet my sister in the city and we'd go out and have fun with her workmates and go to the pub with my colleagues at this workplace.

(00:55:50):

I was starting to live again. And at 12 months, I'd outgrown this job because I really had to start from scratch again and I got another job. I went off, applied, went off for an interview, and I remember a cousin saying who would get really nervous with interviews. And she's like, "How can you do interviews with panic attacks and panic disorder?" And I was like, "Interviews are nothing compared to agoraphobia. Sure, I'm nervous, whatever. It's like an hour of my life. Who cares?" So things that other people would be nervous about, I wouldn't be nervous about.

(00:56:29):

Anyway, so yeah, I was really thriving for about three years and I even to the point where I'd saved some money and I ended up buying an apartment and moved out on my own. Super exciting, but also I just remember my first night and I was like, "What have I done? Who thought you could do this? " I was terrified. It was a new exposure for me. I lived on my own and I'm like, "Here I am. Who made you think that you could do this and go off and buy your own groceries and pay your bills? And what if my job doesn't last? I've got a mortgage." But again, day by day and I got easier and I was thriving.

(00:57:23):

So I was really feeling like I was saying I was recovered from agoraphobia. Agoraphobia was something that was in my past, but what I was defining agrophobia as was being housebound. I still certainly couldn't do everything. I wasn't back on trams. So after my exposures with the doctor, and even though I was living right near a tram line, I wasn't using trams or trains. I was still driving in areas that felt safe to me. I was only applying for jobs in locations that I knew I could drive to, which were about a five to 10K radius. So I was still very much agrophobic, even though I didn't realize it or define it as that.

(00:58:15):

So in the next episode, I'll talk to that, that the agrophobia freedom sort of was a real journey and roller coaster for the next 10 to 15 years. And I'm going to share that from a real honest perspective. Again, I think there are so many people out there telling their story that sort of say, "And I got well, the end." And then for many of us, especially when you're throwing things like trauma, it's not that simple. So I really want to sort of be really honest with my story that it's been a rollercoaster and it's still tough at times, but I'm still independent, healthy, happy, living independently.

(00:59:07):

In the 15 years that I'll talk about in part two, there were points where I was clinging on with clenched fists. I was white knuckling it. I hope this first part on agoraphobia recovery has been helpful. What you'll know about me is that I do go off on tangents and I am just talking from the heart. There is no script here, so I hope it has made sense. Please do drop me a line. I would love to hear from you if it's resonated, if it's helped, if anything was confusing, if you like, please do another episode on, or dig down further on this, or I didn't quite understand that. Please let me know. I want this to be really helpful. As I say, follow me on Instagram on Unbuckle Your Fears. That's probably the easiest place to find me and you can direct message me.

(01:00:10):

Bear with me if I don't see your message straight away, I will find it eventually, but please support my work. If you're listening to this and you're in Melbourne and you want to sort of have me speak at an event or a workplace, I do this stuff, so please again shout out to me. But as I've said in the first two episodes, and if this is your first episode, welcome. And thank you for lasting this long into a long waffle, but I want to leave you with a question each week because I love that. I love when people challenge and don't just talk at me. So I've been talking at you for about, well, over 50 minutes. It's been a long episode, but I want you to think about if you're agrophobic or you've got a health challenge or there's just something you want to achieve and you're coming from a sense of unwellness, I want you to define what recovery means for you.

(01:01:24):

Recovery, and as I said in my intro, I popped that in quotation marks. It's a word I really don't like. I didn't dislike it till I saw everyone on Instagram, all these experts talking to it, and there's an assumption of what recovery is. There's an ableist tone to it, an outdated tone to it, that you don't need support. You don't need support tools. You don't need support people. You don't need anything. You fully function without any other needs and that you don't have any ill health and the roller coaster is just plain sailing. Well, that's not my lived experience, I promised you. And I have met hundreds of people who also have anxiety, actually probably thousands, because I talk about it all the time. And I do this as a speaker and advisor in groups. And I promise you that most people's experiences are not that either.

(01:02:36):

So I want you to define what recovery means to you. And I want you to keep it really attainable to begin with, depending where you're at in agrophobia, anxiety, panic, phobic disorder, I want you to keep it attainable. So for me, when I first started seeing my doctor, my first aim was to get a job. To me, that was recovery, and it's what I thought recovery was. If I'm living, working, independent, can go and catch up with a friend, can go to Christmas day without fear, I am recovered.

(01:03:21):

Then I changed the goalpost. I then changed and redefined what recovery was for me once I felt comfortable at those points. So again, think about that marathon. It might be initially the first goal is to run ... I'm not going to do a marathon, so let's do a 5K fun run. Then maybe we aim for half a marrow. Then it might be a full marathon. You get what I mean? And enjoy each step. So where would you love to be? But what would recovery look like for you in 12 months? Define it, think of it, work towards it. Thank you for listening to me. Again, if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and rate and follow me. All the details will be in the description and take good care of yourself. See you next time.