College Essay On Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia can be treated and cured, but only through a lot of work by someone who suffers from this disorder, as well as help from their family, friends, counselors, and medication (“Agoraphobia”, n.d.). Most do not even know that this fear/disorder exists and assume that a person living next door, who never comes out, is just weird. In actuality, they are not weird at all, but are afraid, terrified even, to even walk out and be among the living. They cannot live normal, productive lives as others do with daily routines that most take for granted. These are the ones seen peeking through the blinds of their homes, yet never come out. Think about being trapped in your home, like a hermit, never seeing daylight or never being able to go to the store, out to eat, or on a date. Can you imagine? No, I cannot either, but many live with this fear, called Agoraphobia. Through treatment one does not have to stay trapped deep within one’s own minds, trapped in this in this terrifying existence. This existence of a vast anxiety and fear from within of what you ask? The

People with agoraphobia will start avoiding the places or things they connect to the cause the panic or anxiety attack. They will start to drive a certain way home, avoid shopping all together, they may not leave their homes without a person they consider safe, and they may not leave at all. These suffers have one of the worse cases of panic disorder; they are not only trapped in their own minds, but in their own homes as well. They truly feel as if they leave, they will die. In many cases this starts with a single anxiety or panic attack; other disorders can accompany this such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, all of which add to the effect of the panic attack. OCD can add to this by making one obsess over the fear to a point of alienation from family, friends and the outside