Oh, Lovely Agoraphobia!

Posted by: HSP Woman on: June 7, 2009

• In: agoraphobia | anger | anxiety | anxiety & depression | anxiety attacks | panic attacks | panic disorder
• 18 Comments

I am anxious and scared.  And mad.  At myself.

Tomorrow, my husband has plans to attend a conference.  It’s very important to him, and I know that.  The problem is that I am terrified. I’ve hit a rough patch over the past couple of months, and I don’t trust myself alone all week. I feel like hiding in a closet.  Of what am I so afraid?

Of course, he usually goes to work, but this time it’s different; he’ll be (more) out of reach, most likely totally engrossed in the keynote speaker’s address. Translation: I will be on my own to fend off the panic attacks.

Over the past 15 years, he’s been there for me.  He’s learned how to relate to my panicky episodes, my lack of self-trust, my fear of abandonment, my issues with my social phobia, my fantastic imagination, etc.  He’s been there.

Lately, however, I see it changing.  His voice is, overall, getting louder.  He’s sympathy is dwindling.  Tonight, he told me my agoraphobia has made him a prisoner, too, just as it has made me.

I gasped.  My breathing stopped.  He had said the magic words I’d been dreading to hear.

I had never heard him so mean and unsympathetic.  He speaks as though he’s never heard of panic disorder before.  He says things like “That’s illogical.” And, “Yeah, and maybe some robbers will break into the house and murder you while a meteor hits.”  You know, things that a mad person yells.  He shouts that I should also worry that a plane may hit the house, just in case I hadn’t thought of it yet.

So, I am in new territory.  I hate being dependent upon him to eat, to have a job, to accompany me to the doctor and the shopping mall.  I hate myself for being so screwed up with these thoughts and phobias and horrific images.

I want him to travel even if I can’t join him.  I want him to go to this conference even though I will be here frozen in fear.

I can’t join him when I am down like I am now.  I just can’t.

But, can’t he be more sympathetic?  Less loud and mean when he speaks to me?  I gather he’s just up to his neck in frustration with my “problems.”  My never-ending fricking problems.  Yeah, I get it.  I just don’t think I would be as cold if my partner had what I had and I was as functioning as he.

Maybe I should let him be free.  I should let him find another partner who can do all the things I can’t do.  Maybe he’s already made the same decision. It really feels like he wants out.

I hope I can make it tomorrow and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday without losing it.

Any of you who suffers with panic disorder and agoraphobia knows how I feel. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse.

I am just in a worse part now.

I must remember it passes.  It always does.

If you are reading this during the week of June 8, 2009, please send me a little strength, if you have some to spare.