Agoraphobia

I don't know anything about the condition of agoraphobia. I know my Mom felt that "Aunt" Carleen's agoraphobia might improve if she just got out of her apartment once in a while. (I'm almost certain Mom was being facetious.)

I can guess that there's a chemical catalyst behind agoraphobia. I suppose someday they'll find the chemical behind every mental illness, and they'll drop the "phobia" suffix from every phobia, and therapists will just treat neurosis. Or is that day here already and I'm just operating off old assumptions?)

At any rate, I can tell you that my body's chemistry has a strong agoraphobic reaction to the prospect of leaving the house. Since the pandemic, I rarely go out. When I do leave the house it's only for sterile locations like the hospital, with a few exceptions like the all-night pharmacy.  Still, every time I leave the house my body reacts.Without fail, the prospect of leaving the house wakes up my lower intestine.

"She's leaving!" it shouts. "Time to bug out! Pump up the serotonin! Move out! Evacuate!"'

I'm not exaggerating: it's every damn time, to the degree that I will put on the shoes and bra and fake out my digestion an hour ahead of my estimated departure time so it has a chance to drop ballast. It's like a very, very specific panic attack.  

I hope this doesn't continue after the pandemic.

Comments

[KC]

Emotional stress releases chemicals, too, and tenses certain muscles, so I think it's probably all a messy blend which can be subdued by chemical control and can be mitigated by emotional adjustment and some things we have no idea how to fix yet.

(your strategy of Fake The Body Out seems brilliant.)

(our body can also start to do things in response to stimuli, a la Pavlov, so you may have that going on? It's all very weird.)

[TheQueen]

KC - that reminds when of when I had dogs and they would whine when they saw my bra, because they knew I was leaving.

[KC]

That is really, really funny.