I would just like to share my experience with agoraphobia sufferers out there who are finding it too difficult to deal with their symptoms,and beg you all to please,please no matter how difficult it may be for you to ask for help from the outside world,ask...find someone - it can get a lot worse before it gets better if you let it take over your life without seeking help.
I'm 25 and my mother suffered with agorophobia my entire life.
It all started when she was pregnant with me,at the funeral of her aunt - she arrived at the church to find 2 coffins. Not one of her 15 brothers and sisters or her husband,my father - had the heart to tell her that her mother had died a few days after her aunt.She found out by asking who was in the other coffin.From then she started to lose her trust of the outside world and gradually developed severe agoraphobia.
It eventually killed her a year ago.I feel angry that she felt she couldn't talk to anyone about how serious this was affecting her.And I'm angry that her condition was not recognized or acknowledged as the main reason for her passing.I was told that agorophobia is not a serious enough condition to be the cause of death.In my eyes,it is.
At first she was coping quite well with it as we lived in a reasonable sized house that she could busy herself with as well as a nice sized enclosed garden.Although gradually as things got worse, she would only leave the house once or twice a year to go to family special occaisions,not once leaving my fathers side.Relying on others to do shopping for groceries,and I had to get everybody's birthday and xmas presents for her.
In the last few years she had to move to a smaller place with my dad where she knew nobody.Her life started to take a turn for the worse as her days were spent in fear of the outside world,only getting out of bed to watch her soaps - they were her doorway to the world.
Eventually she got so depressed,she stopped eating. for the last 2 months her only intake was 2 glasses of cider of an evening with her soaps. She knew what she was doing deep down as she hid it well from us all. If we knew how this was affecting her, maybe we could've helped her.But when we realized how ill she had become, the agorophobia was to such an extent that she would not see a doctor or
