Fear of getting out...

Hi my name is Nick and i have been dealing with anxiety since i was 12 i have been off and on with my anxiety and i wish i could just go back to the days where i was care free and could do anything. When i was 12 my mom put me on medication and it worked a little bit but she didn't like the side effects that the medicine had on me so she took me off. Then when i was 18 i had to start back on the medication and it helped a lot i was living a full life i had a great social life and i was always going out hanging with people and hanging with family. But very recently my life went down the drain, about one to two years ago i started having a lot of problems, i like to think that it has to do with where i was working at the time. I was fine before i started working for a security company, this company had me station in North Saint Louis which is not the best of the neighborhoods, this neighborhood has lots of shooting and lots of police activity, and i guess the hours i worked for the company were not the best because i worked Fri - 10pm to 6am, Sat - 6pm to 6am, and Sun - 6pm to 6am. I like working there for a while because it was in my field of becoming a cop. But after a while i would start having panic attacks while driving up which was about an hour drive from my house. It came to one point where i had to pull over in a bad neighborhood where it felt like i was going to die, i was sweating real bad i felt like i was going to pass out and had to have my parents come and pick me up and take me home, it was one of the worst panic attacks i had in my lifetime. So it came down to where i didn't want to leave my house my mom had to beg me to leave the house and i would still refuse to leave the house, so she treatened me about taking me to a mental hospital, so i left and went to a therapist for her and it seemed to help a little, so when i went to my doctor and he started me on two medications clanzopam and a generalized anxiety medicine i can't think of at the moment, so i just went back about a month ago and he wanted to take me off the clanzopam and it did suck but i am glad i am off of it now because i feel more like myself. But i still don't want to leave the house because i am afraid i am going to have a panic attack in public and make a fool of myself again, so i am just going to work and coming home. I have lost friends because of this anxiety and i am stating to lose my family because i don't go to any events because i am just afraid to go out. I am 24 years old and should have a social life and want to live life to its fullest, so please help anyone.

Thanks,
Nick

Hey Panicman1991,

You seem to me to be suffering from classic agoraphobia, so I'll include a previous post on it, modified for you:

AGORAPHOBIA often occurs as a result of having had a panic attack in a public place, and not wanting to repeat that experience outside of a place where someone feels safe, (which is usually at home) in a place where they feel exposed and unable to get help quickly.

Recommended reading: The Agoraphobia Workbook: A Comprehensive Program to End Your Fear of Symptom Attacks by Dr. Elke Zuercher-White and Dr. C. Alec Pollard, & Freedom From Agoraphobia by Mark Eisenstadt, & Master Your Panic and Take Back Your Life: Twelve Treatment Sessions to Conquer Panic, Anxiety and Agoraphobia (Master Your Panic & Take Back Your Life) by Denise F. Beckfield, from your bookstore, or amazon.com.

At the first sign of one, employ an ANTI PANIC ATTACK breathing technique. Advice from a clinical psychologist is to breathe in to the count of 3: (one thousand one; one thousand two; one thousand three) each takes around a second to say to yourself, in your mind, and out to the count of 3. Keep repeating this until the panic subsides, which will deal with the hyperventilation aspect. View http://deeplyrelax.com & www.deepsloweasy.com/html/intro.htm Note: the controlled breathing only helps with the symptoms, as do medications/herbal remedies. Address the underlying cause, which requires some form of therapy; see http://your-mental-health.weebly.com, re anxiety, on pages 1, h, & i. Page h shows the difference between panic, and anxiety attacks.

Read: When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life, by David D. Burns (2007), & Panic Attacks Workbook: A Guided Program for Beating the Panic Trick by David Carbonell, & How to Stop Anxiety & Panic Attacks: A Simple Guide to using a specific set of Techniques to Stop Panic Attacks, Agoraphobia, Social Phobia, Fear of Driving or Flying and Stress by Geert Verschaeve, & "Power Over Panic", by Bronwyn Fox, from your bookstore, or enter "panic attacks" in the searchbar at Amazon.com for more media. Some people recommend nettle tea, with a little honey. Others use Passionflower, Lavender tea, Lemon Balm, Chamomile, but use no milk or cream with herbal teas, or Valerian* (caution: use it* for 3 weeks at most!). Know how these affect you before driving, or doing anything dangerous, and it is far better to use the treatments, rather than relying on herbal remedies.

Free online PANIC COURSE - www.panic-attacks.co.uk also available by email. See the section on panic attacks at www.mind.org.uk also in Ebooklet form. They recommend letting a panic attack run its course, without doing anything to treat it, so you KNOW you will survive it. The usual maximum is 25 minutes, until symptoms begin to subside. Also see www.anxietypanic.com/signs.html and http://www.onestepatatime.com (chatroom, and one free email is allowed to their resident expert on joining [free] - more if a paid up member) and

http://www.medicinenet.com/panic_disorder/artic and http://www.anxietynetwork.com

Practice a relaxation method, daily, and when needed, such as http://www.drcoxconsulting.com/managing-stress.html** or http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/mind...Meditation.htm or http://www.wikihow.com/Meditate or Yoga Nidra, ( http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showth...951#post224951 ). 20 mns is ideal, preferably in the morning, or afternoon.

Hypnosis is merely a heightened state of suggestibility, in which you are better able to communicate with your subconscious mind. 85% of people are suggestible, to some degree, so you could either seek professional hypnotherapy, or quicker, cheaper, and more conveniently: http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com has: Agoraphobia, and Perfect Partners: Stop Panic Attacks + Breathing Exercise, or http://www.instant-hypnosis.com has: Beat Agoraphobia, and Stop Panic Attacks, and http://www.asktheinternettherapist.com has: Remedy for Agoraphobia: CD or MP3. Professional advice is to use preferably only one, or at most, two at a time.

My post on panic and anxiety attacks may be found at http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showth...006#post220006


To summarise: Basically the approach is to learn, and employ an effective anti-anxiety breathing technique, so that you know that you can cope with them. Learn, and employ an anti-anxiety technique, such as Progressive Muscle Relaxation**, or EFT.

EFT:
Give the Meridian Tapping Technique / EFT a good tryout, to see if it helps you. It is free via mercola.com or www.tapping.com (13 free videos), or www.eftuniverse.com or www.emofree.com or one of the many YouTube videos. Google: "YouTube; EFT videos".
Professionally instructed is generally preferable (Google: therapists; EFT; [your location] ). - There is a version for use in public places at http://eft.mercola.com (if you like, you can claim to have a headache, as you employ the acupressure massage / tapping on your temples, but you would then be restricted to subvocalising: saying it to yourself in your mind: "Even though I have , I deeply and completely accept myself)."

Once competent with an anti-panic attack breathing technique and anti-panic attack breathing technique, I suggest going out the front door and possibly to the end of the street before returning. On the next day, go a greater distance, and so on, in easy stages, until confident that you will be able to manage going to employment interviews. Try to avoid shift work, or ensure supplementation of vitamin D and its cofactors. Avoid the riskier parts of the city, if you can.

I'm not in a position to know, but many shift workers suffer from a vitamin D deficiency, due to their inability to get regular, sensible sun exposure.

There is a long thread here titled: "Vitamin D3 Cured my Anxiety, Depression, and Panic Disorder", at http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showth...hlight=vitamin with my post at http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showth...obbly-eyesight

I suggest that you have your levels tested via your doctor, or http://vitaminDcouncil.org If not in a position to, 50,000 IU, once a week supplements are available inexpensively online and Amazon.com, but also take a high quality multivitamin + mineral supplement; preferably mercola.com or xtend-life.com online, otherwise Suisse, from pharmacies, vitamin stores, and even supermarkets, to ensure sufficient of the vitamin D cofactors, zinc, magnesium, boron, and vitamin K2 (assuming that, like most people, you are getting sufficient calcium).

A deficiency in vitamin D may result in secondary deficiencies of vitamins B12, and B6, (and the mineral, iron) which can cause anxiety and panic attacks; check out https://www.google.com.au/search?cli...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 such as:

3 Natural Remedies for Panic Attacks Backed By Medical ...
http://www.naturalhealthadvisory.com...-for-panic-att...
Sep 3, 2015 - The B vitamin deficiencies most often linked to panic attacks, anxiety and depression are B6, B9, and B12.[2] Food sources of these B vitamins ...


Panic attacks, anxiety linked to low vitamin B and iron levels ...
http://www.naturalnews.com/040563_vi...ic_attacks_iro...
May 31, 2013 - Panic attacks, anxiety linked to low vitamin B and iron levels: Study. ... that both vitamin B6 and iron were lacking in the subjects with anxiety and ... B2 and B12 and high frequency or intensity of panic attacks, all B vitamins are ...

If any weblinks don't work, kindly PM me, so I can amend future posts. A previous post on shift work / night shifts follows:


NIGHT SHIFTS:
Enter: "night shifts" and "shift work" in the searchbar at http://www.mercola.com and check out the articles. Not only is it known to affect sleep adversely, which can also cause depression, (negative thoughts are just one symptom of it) but also the lack of exposure to sunlight may well cause a deficiency in vitamin D3. People with the lowest levels of it are 11 times more likely to be suffering from depression. 59% of Americans are deficient in it.

There are ways to help cope, such as always wearing dark sunglasses after leaving night shift, until home, and using reduced lighting then, to simulate approaching darkness, but having bright light for 30 - 120 mns on arising, to reset and stabilise circadian rhythm.

View http://drbenkim.com/vitamin-d-facts.htm & http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...-nutrient.aspx Info on sleepiness resulting from shift work is at http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders...ht-shift-sleep


Hoping something in the above helps.

I'm so sorry you're feeling this way Panic. Have your tried going out bit by bit? I'm sure you don't have to jump right into the social life that you once had. Each inch you gain is worth it, even though it feels like you're losing feet at the same time. Praying for you and hope you find what you're looking for. Hoping you can get out there and be the person you once were. Hang in there!