Agoraphobia and Life Circumstances

Life circumstances, or how you perceive your life circumstances, can be a major contributing factor in the onset of agoraphobia. In Freedom From Agoraphobia, Dr. Mark Eisenstadt writes that the key to agoraphobia can be summed up in one word – “traps.”

“We develop panic attacks when we’re trapped in our lives,” writes Dr. Eisenstadt. “We stop having panic attacks when we escape from those traps. We go in and out of periods of having panic attacks as we go in and out of periods of being trapped in our lives” (p. 33).

While treating patients with agoraphobia for over 30 years, Dr. Eisenstadt observed an interesting phenomenon. He noticed that people who experienced panic attacks and agoraphobia for a number of years would seemingly recover for a period of time, only to have the panic attacks return later. Dr. Eisenstadt also noticed that in many of these cases, panic attacks would come and go as the individual came in and out of life traps.

Dr. Eisenstadt describes life traps as “any situation that we don’t want to be in but from which we can see no acceptable escape” (p. 34). A life trap is feeling like you are caught in bad circumstances, but are powerless to do anything about it.

Here are some examples of life traps:

A young woman is married to an abusive alcoholic. He beats her and berates her on a regular basis. He has threatened to kill her if she tries to leave him. She is miserable in the relationship but she sees no way out. She is afraid to stay with him, but even more afraid to leave him.

A young man enters high school aspiring to be a great athlete. His self-esteem and confidence among peers comes largely from his athletic performance, but his parents expect him to make straight A’s in honors courses. In the past, they have gotten angry and punished him if his grade dropped to a B in a class. Wanting to please his parents, he signs up for honors courses and does his best to succeed. When basketball season comes, after school practices consume much of his study time. There is just not enough time in the day to practice three hours with the basketball team and study enough to do well in honors courses. He dreams of being a great basketball player, but wants to please his parents. He doesn’t see how it is possible to do both.

A single mother feels stuck in a stressful work situation. She feels the need to take some time off and consider a career change, but doesn’t feel like she can afford to. She feels pressure to provide for her son and that she does not have the freedom to risk quitting to find a more fulfilling career.

A middle-aged woman feels like she can no longer take care of her mother who is living with her. Her mother has Alzheimer’s disease and needs more care than the woman can give and still function in her job and family. At the same time, she feels like she has to keep taking care of her mother to be a good daughter. She feels caught between giving up her own life and taking care of her mother, or living with the guilt she would feel if she put her mother in a skilled nursing facility.

According to Dr. Eisenstadt, traps may be real or perceived. They can stem from a person’s actual life circumstances or from a person’s subjective experience.

Traps can also vary in length. They may last for months and even years, as in the previous examples, or they may last a few days or even come and go within a day. For example, people who cannot say no and take on too many obligations may find themselves in a seemingly inescapable trap of trying to fulfill them all.

Whatever the trap is, according to Dr. Eisenstadt, you can expect panic attacks to begin when you enter the trap. If you stay caught in the trap too long, you can expect the trap to manifest itself in your life as agoraphobia, or being confined to your home.

Article Source: http://www.agoraphobia.net

Stephen Price is a recovered agoraphobic with a master’s degree in psychology. His informational website on agoraphobia featuring a free newsletter can be found at: www.agoraphobia.ws

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