Resilience
My Battle with Agoraphobia
A worthy fight after a brain injury.
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder where you avoid places and scenarios that might cause panic attacks.
My brain injury is to my brain stem, and one of the myriad symptoms is panic attacks. My brain and body both betray me by randomly choosing to act as though I am in a horribly dangerous situation. Instead, I am actually relatively safe.
The feelings can be in my mind only, where my body is calm, but my mind is racing. The opposite is also possible, where my mind is calm, but my body is SCREAMING at me to get out of the area, NOW. The real kicker is when both my body and my brain act in unison. That has put me in the hospital frequently. These attacks can lead to dissociation, which is a topic for another day.
The more often that these attacks occur, the more dangerous the threat of agoraphobia becomes. When I am feeling panicky, it is very easy to just stay home and avoid any outside content that could trigger an attack.
Unfortunately, the more that I give in to that impulse, the more likely I will repeat the behavior next time.
The secret for me to avoid both the heavy panic attacks and the agoraphobia has been a yoga practice that I discovered while taking a yoga leadership course. In learning yoga, I learned to lean into discomfort. It taught me to push myself past a pain threshold, to a point of discomfort, but far short of causing a lasting injury.
By leaning into the discomfort of a potential panic attack, I can get out more often, and take part in family events. I also volunteer with one of my local veterans’ organizations. This has been a winning strategy for me.
There is a fine line between discomfort and injury. It is important to learn that line and try your best to stay at the line. I fail at this, all the time, but I am grateful that I have the skill because it has opened so many doors for me.