Anxiety - still winning the battle
2008-03-24 17:47:00
Everything is boringly good here.Friday was the best day. While I was out with the children, Marie made an appointment to see our doctor at the out-of-hours clinic - about 9 miles from our home. She rang me to tell me she needed a lift there, but due to heavy traffic, I couldn't get home in time. Much to my surprise, as I neared our home, I found out that she had made her own way there by car. Even more surprising, she then went into the clinic and saw the doctor - all by herself! When I was near the clinic, I met her on her way back home!Then on Sunday, when we were all out in the car, I pulled into a petrol station to fill up the car. While I was busy pumping petrol, Marie got out of the car and walked about 10m over to the mini-supermarket attached to the petrol station. She then
Anxiety Care and self help
2008-04-02 10:50:00
By sheer chance I found an article about self help for (all) phobia sufferers a couple of days ago. I thought it might be of use to Marie and showed it to her. She later told me that it was the best thing she’d ever read (in relation to agoraphobia)! If you want to see it too, click here, and I’d be interested to know your opinion of the contents. Btw, the charitable organisation who run this site are broke, so if you have any spare cash, click here. If you would like to help, but have no spare cash click here.
Monophobia & Agoraphobia
2008-04-02 10:29:00
I recently learned a new word – monophobia. It’s not a new word, so I don’t know why I never came across it before, and it’s a useful word for me to use in relation to Marie’s condition. As I’m sure everyone knows, this is the fear of being alone. It sometimes occurs on its own, but mostly it’s an optional (lol) add-on to agoraphobia or social phobia. Marie used to have the extra-special platinum version of this, where she was unable to be anywhere without one of a few safe people: now she has the common-or-gard en platinum version, where she can stay at home alone as long as a safe person can get to her within about 3 minutes. This might not sound like a big improvement, but its repercussions have been vast. No longer do I have to drag “safe” friends/relatives
Winter??? Wonderland
2008-04-09 17:45:00
It hardly ever snows here in our little town by the sea. And when it occasionally does, it doesn't sit. Just melts away straight away. But sometimes it snows properly on the surrounding hills.On Sunday last, snow was forecast for our general area, and, true to form, we got about 43 snowflakes. ...Which immediately disappeared on hitting the ground. The kids were most disappointed. They had seen snow on various TV programmes, but had never seen the real thing. So, when one of my daughters who lives 20 miles away inland told me that it was snowing in her area, I decided that I would take the kids to the highest hill near us and hope for snow.Naturally, Marie couldn't go.We struck lucky. Just as we reached the car park at the summit of the hill, it started to snow gently. The childre
Read more: Wonderland
Marie's Anxiety Tour
2008-04-13 05:51:00
Marie’s 4-day break Marie communicates regularly with another agoraphobic of similar age called Lyn. Stunning-looking Lyn lives in Scotland. Marie & I visited Scotland a few years ago and I used to live there (quite a few years ago) and we both like the country, so it had been Marie’s long-time wish to go to Scotland again and visit her friend. More recently, one of the members of the No More Panic online community arranged a “meet” in Long Eaton in the English midlands. Marie wanted to go there. She would be able to meet in person some of her online friends from the NMP chat room as well as other anxiety sufferers. Marie came up with the bright idea of combining the two visits in one trip. Then she expanded this idea to include visiting more of her online frien
Read more: Marie
STRESSED
2008-04-16 00:24:00
I'm stressed.I didn't realise how much stress I was under during Marie's anxiety sufferers' tour until I got home. I was totally exhausted. I did enjoy the few days away, but all the time I was away, I was worrying, consciously or subconsciously. Worries like...Will Marie feel comfortable to stay here?Will our overnight accommodation be suitable?Where's the nearest toilet that Marie will be able to access?Where can we find somewhere to eat?Where can I park the car?...And similar issues.Most of the time we're out, I'm monitoring Marie's mood. Is she getting anxious? Will we have to leave here? It's hard to relax since I'm on a constant state of alert.Marie really enjoyed her trip; but she too was exhausted by the time we returned home. All that time away from her safest place had tak
Agoraphobia & Collette's Wedding
2008-04-18 16:11:00
On Thursday, Collette
's big day had arrived. Her wedding day. The day which had caused Marie's anticipatory anxiety, and the day which was costing me thousands of £'s Collette and the bridesmaids stayed with us the previous night and were busy all morning drinking champagne and getting ready. The downside - the bathroom was occupied most of the time. The upside - watching a succession of half-naked women running back and forward across the hall. When the photographer turned up at 1.00 pm, they were ready and Marie, the kids and I were pretty close to being ready, too. After the photographer did his bit, we all went to the wedding venue. How was Marie going to fare there? I had no idea.When we arrived at the wedding venue, our two cars were placed where Marie felt that they would he
Enabling agoraphobia
2008-04-18 21:18:00
Last week I had a comment on my post "Stressed". The comment, from an anonymous contributor, included the following words..."I just get this overwhelming sense that Marie is a victim to it [agoraphobia], and you are her enabler. I know this is something you touched on in the past.......it's just she's not going to get better by doing nothing."....and it was odd how, at just that time, Marie and I were having a conversation about this.We discussed how, in order to assist her to attend Collette's wedding, everyone pandered to her anxiety. We talked about how in the past she had been able to make progress by allowing herself to risk getting into a situation where having a panic attack was a distinct possibility. Recently she had even come through a small panic attack while driving in her c
Agoraphobia winning
2008-05-04 22:58:00
Things aren't going so well for Marie at the moment. Not only is her agoraphobia worse, but her general anxiety level is worse too. But we didn't let it ruin our second wedding anniversary! It was on Thursday last. While the children were being looked after by big sister Colleen, Marie and I went to a posh Italian restaurant where we had a wonderful romantic meal and enjoyed the relaxed ambience. The romantic mood lasted late into the night... Marie is unhappy about what she perceives to be the worsening of her condition, but not depressed. She is determined to fight it...she just hasn't decided how, yet. On a personal level, I also believe that she can turn this around and recover lost ground. It might take a while, that's all. Meanwhile, Orla has had a growth spurt and is now tall
Syncope and Reflex Anoxic Seizures
2008-07-17 18:30:00
Here's a picture of Orla sitting on my knee eating birthday cake. The occasion is the family party to celebrate her 3rd birthday, last weekend.It's just coincidence, of course, but just after her 2nd birthday I wrote a post about her fitting episodes...and here I am, a year later, writing about them again. That's because she's recently been having them more frequently. Is it also a coincidence
Read more: Reflex
, Seizures
Fighting Anxiety to see the New Baby
2008-07-13 05:51:00
And this is the reason that we went to see Marie's sister.She had just given birth.And this was the result.Raphael.A litle miracle, like all babies.Marie had almost given up hope of seeing her new nephew any time soon.Her anxiety level was too high to contemplate a 3.5 hour trip.But then the citalopram kicked in.Orla was enthralled.Her Dora doll was immediately renamed Raphael.He had his nappy cha
Read more: Fighting
, New Baby
Medication for Anxiety
2008-07-12 04:51:00
After a while, Marie got quite upset at the new, unexplained and unexpected deterioration in her condition.Her first instinctive reaction was to retreat from the world until the nasty thing went away. It soon became obvious to her that this was, in fact, making her worse. She started having panic attacks for no obvious reason - sometimes several in a day. She was anxious all the time. She was
Read more: Medication
Agoraphobia & Anxiety get even worse...
2008-07-08 16:15:00
My blogging hiatus is over. For the moment at least :) Free time, always a precious commodity, has become very scarce. Looking after an agoraphobic wife, my immediate family and business, while also attending to my wider family when required, has exhausted my free time and most of my energy...For Marie, things have gone from worse to worse.She is almost housebound. Her only escape is by c
|
Recommend Site To A Friend
