3 Things That Aren't Helping Your Agoraphobia

If you haven't read the first article in my series on having agoraphobia then please click here.

I am making this series as I approach the ten year mark of having been diagnosed with agoraphobia and so, I hope to share my experiences, help others and possibly give you some hints and tips not as solutions but as things to assist you in managing your condition. As someone who has a decade of experience, I have many, many tried and tested methods. Some of them work, some of them do not. If you would like to look at three coping mechanisms that you can use then the first article with the link is just for you. But, if you've already been through that one, I would like to share three things that are probably in your life that you don't realise are having a huge impact on your state of wellbeing when it comes to agoraphobia and are possibly making it a whole lot worse to deal with. So let's get into this article that investigates:

3 Things That Aren't Helping Your Agoraphobia

1. High-Sugar Foods

High sugar foods such as candy, milk chocolate, desserts and the like are all good in moderation. Once in a while a few spoons of ice-cream can be a nice treat and even ease anxieties such as agoraphobia in small amounts. But, consume them too much and you're just putting your own heart rate up on your own. High-sugar foods are known for triggering quick responses without much thought so, psychologically it cannot be good for your agoraphobia in large amounts. I'm not saying don't eat treats at all, I'm saying please moderate them when you do.

The quick responses that high-sugar foods let you give can mean that you impulses take over from your reasoning and if your impulse is packed full of that horrid, horrid anxiety that is agoraphobia - it can make it not only more prominent but also more difficult to deal with. It can put you at much higher risk of panic attacks (tried and tested as I used to eat a ton of sugary foods in university and ended up with my highest panic attack rate in one year during my undergraduate degree) and can also make it harder to get to sleep, thus sticking you in a cycle of constantly being on edge. Management of your disorder therefore, can get evermore difficult and can make it harder to see what is real from what is your mind talking to you about all these horrible things.

If you have agoraphobia, chances are you're also taking Zoloft like me. Zoloft does not mix well with too much sugar because it will end up giving you a migraine. Please be careful when consuming high-sugar foods therefore. Instead of three cookies, have two and see what happens. If you're calmer and less agitated then have two from now on. But if your body can take three then have three. You need to do what is right for your body and make sure that too much sugar is not in your diet for all of these reasons.

2. A Low-Carb Diet

I've been seeing low-carb diets everywhere on the internet and for two years, I was actually on one myself. But being 5ft 6inches tall and weighing 45kg (or about 98-99 pounds) was no longer fun (not that is was before, I was dangerously sick!) I noticed that whilst I was on my low-carb diet I was far more aggressive towards myself, I would beat myself up for not being able to do things and I would punish myself by not eating things. This was caused by the low-carb diet itself. Not eating certain things will make you lose weight anyway (if that's your goal) but not eating carbohydrates, the very thing that regulates brain activity, is probably not the best idea when you've got an underlying mental condition like agoraphobia.

As someone who has both agoraphobia and hypochondria, you can probably imagine how well this went. Well, it didn't go well at all. I lost too much weight and I was putting immense pressure on myself to cure my anxieties which could not be cured. When I came off the low-carb diet and started eating properly again (I am now, of 2020, 5ft 6inches and weigh about 57kg or 125 pounds) I found my brain activity to be regulated. I was less aggressive on myself, I felt a slight bit calmer and I felt like I had more freedom. I was happier and I believed it was possible to cope.

Most of the battle with coping is believing that there is some possibility in it. If you believe it can happen then eventually it will. Once you begin to come back to your natural ways, eating a good amount (but not too much because of sugar!) carbs and making the effort to exercise little by little each day (I do walks and lift weights) I can assure you that even if it's a tiny step - things will be different. You will feel all around more together and things won't seem as impossible anymore.

3. Sitting Around

Sitting around is one of the biggest epidemics of our age. People just sit around all day every day and are mostly at a computer because of work, because they're writing things, because they're watching things or they're on social media. However, there is a solution to this and first we'll see why it isn't helping your agoraphobia before we go through the solution.

It's not helping your agoraphobia because sitting down, especially if you're just at a computer, can trigger laziness. This can have an impact on your psychology and because your brain isn't doing too much work, your mind floats off into the realms of your disorder and throws flaming arrows through your skull. This can not only raise your anxiety at the time but if you do this enough, it can make it difficult to deal with later on because no the intrusive thoughts are no longer intrusive, they're just there to fill your mind with something to think about.

The solution to this: take up some activity where you have to get up. Personally, I like baking things and making my own hard candy. It forces me to constantly be thinking about what I'm doing because if I'm not, it'll mess the whole thing up. Another solution is: if you are sitting down for any reason, have a good book/podcast/newspaper etc. at the ready. Be thinking about something in order to trick your mind into thinking of something other than your disorder. If your mind gets the impression that it is time for some laziness, you have to work with it, inspire it and move it forward.

Not only will this make it easier to deal with in the moment, but overall, it will make your disorder more manageable and you'll be able to cope that little bit more.

Conclusion:

Of course, your body is your own choice and you know your body better than anyone. But these are the baby steps you can take to making what you're going through more comfortable to deal with. Trust me when I say that I know that it will never, ever go away. And so, we have to learn to make it manageable and treat it like it is a part of us rather than trying to work against it all the time. We have to work with our own minds because if we don't, it will push back against us. There's really no use in complaining about it but always make sure you take your medication on time and in the right doses, do your best to cope and give your experiences an outlet (like articles or go and help people). You'll find you feel a bit better at the end of the day.