Is it just me… Weird phobias.

[allan wallace]

Ugh, that spider is bloody hideous…*shudder*…I thought of another big phobia of mine today and meant to post it, but I’ve forgotten the ruddy thing. It will come back to me later…

I don’t like parties either. I head for the corner and try to avoid people as much as I can…talking to people turns me into a zombie or something because I’m trying so hard to not upset anybody, but I invariably end up offending, or scaring, or creeping somebody out if I get a bit intense when somebody finds themselves stuck near me…

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[allan wallace]

Hmm, I still can’t remember the other one, but another one that I have is nuns! Yep, nuns terrify the bejesus out of me! Especially short, fat, ugly ones with grim visages! Those little squat grumpy hags make me tremble… 😳

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[Misswho23]

When I was a teenager I developed agoraphobia. I haven’t had any problems with it for a long time. There is also social phobia which ties in with agoraphobia.

Basically I think it was a co morbidity of the ADHD being undiagnosed. People who know me now can hardly believe that I would get such bad panic attacks in social situations that I didn’t leave the house literally for 6 months. My mom took me to all sorts of shrinks who just couldn’t pin point the problem. Kept saying it was depression. Couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get anywhere on time. Well that’s hard if you can’t leave the house with out two hours of preparation time. Duh! And at school if anyone would look in my direction it would send me into panic and on my way home. I think lots of teasing and really low self esteem from having trouble in school not being undiagnosed with ADD lead to the panic. You reach a point where you just break down.

So I finally reached a point where I thought I could return to school. I took a psych class my junior year of high school. I was really interested in psychiatry, well in part because all of the ones my mother took me to couldn’t figure me out. Other than saying I was depressed. Well you would be to if it took you forever to do your school work still got it wrong and everyone kept telling you how weird you were.

So anyway we had to do a report on mental disorders. Such as bi polar, schizophrenia or a phobia. Well my detective light bulb went off at phobias so I checked out a book from the library. Didn’t have anything related to spiders, small spaces, flying or clowns. (I once worked with someone who had the clown thing) Read about agoraphobia and went wow! Ok so I have a name for it. I’m not nuts and apparently there are steps you can take to over come this. Now how all the shrinks could not put it together is beyond me. So I took the Paxil they tried to put me on threw it back at them. It made me a bit on the edgy side. Told them I diagnosed myself (I know we should never do that). I also said it was really a pleasure full of a waste of time going over my childhood trauma but I would be taking matters into my own hands. That I think was the first time I was really able to empower myself and advocate for myself.

So I practiced going outside. Encountering people. Doing what I had to like sitting on the aisle, knowing were the exit was. And staying out for short periods of time to start with. Focusing only on getting to where I was supposed to go. Ah, hyper focus. To a point that I could block out people and what I though they were thinking. Turns out no one really cares. And eventually got a social life again. And to boot took up middle eastern dance and started doing festival performances with a dance troupe. Pretty good for someone who didn’t leave the house for 6 months.

Today about the only thing close is travel anxiety. I always think I will leave something home I will need. My friends often play a game of thinking of some weird random thing while we are vacationing. I usually have it. Like detergent packets you can use in a sink to do laundry. You never know if you won’t have laundry facilities that work. But got the wine stain out of my friends favorite top.

Travel size of everything. And I have an amazing ability to pack a months with of stuff and clothes in to a carryon and have never had to pay the over the limit weight fee for baggage.

I do things a little differntly but it’s called survival. And I might as well have some fun along the way.

I always say if life gives you lemons then put some whiskey in that glass and just sit back and rock on the porch a spell.

Even If I don’t drink the whiskey now. I take the Adderall instead.

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[Carrie]

What is agoraphobia? Ive been looking it up but still cant seem to understand it.

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[Misswho23]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoraphobia

This has a basic description. I have also learned that it is more common among people with ADD/HD.

This was comforting in that it shows that I was not losing my mind.

I hate walmart as well. I call them walmanites. They are a breed of people who stand in the middle of the isle, crash into you with carts and let their kids run rampantly into you or wander down the aisle block every place you are trying to get to.

The lines don’t bother me so much. At least there the shoppers are in an orderly line for the most part. I also put my groceries on the belt in a certain order. I thought it just would make it easier for the bagger. Guess it’s my way of keeping order in uncontrolled situations. But I can also look at a cart of groceries and pretty much guess within a few dollars what the total will be without actually adding it up. I sort of sense it. Funny huh?

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[Misswho23]

Funny I read about hating parties with people you don’t know. I went from not being able to talk to people and hiding to loving parties. Especially at times with people I don’t know. There is a whole new audience who haven’t heard my stories over and over.

However when I do too much of them I get overladed and go into stressed brain meltdown mode. Then I just go off the social circuit for a while and come back when I am recharged.

Maybe the work I did on the agoraphobia has really helped with that. It seems so long ago that I could not leave the house. But I am much more aware of what situations cause me stress nowadays. I’m better at feeling it building up and knowing when I have to be by myself for a while. Other wise I get really cranky and angry at people. Then I start making assumptions about what other people are doing or thinking.

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[Carrie]

What are my phobias considered? Social? Agora? I do avoid them at all costs. As soon as im slowed down by someone in front of me in the store I start to get hot, panic and get very angry. Its the worst with my sister who likes to stand RIGHT behind or beside me so when I turn to escape the slow person BAM smack right into her! One time I got so mad at her. I said “STAY AT LEAST ARMS REACH AWAY!!” so she walked about 10 feet behind and said “IS THIS FAR ENOUGH FOR YOU?” I said “YEP! NOW HURRY UP! AND KEEP YOUR DISTANCE”

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[Carrie]

I like parties too if I can move feely and am feeling comfortable. We just threw a birthday/halloween party for my brother and there were a lot of people there and usually I panic at the thought of that but I was comfortable because I was in a costume and could “hide” in a sense. Plus it was my parents house so I could ditch downstairs away from everyone if needed.

But the party was really great! I just went from group to group. Made each one laugh then moved onto the next. I had some real conversations too. But like you said… with new people your old stories and jokes are new once again! Its great! My uncle was at the party and said “You should be a clown as your side job”. But it was fun. I was very confident and having an amazing time. I wasn’t even drunk! That was a first too!

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[allan wallace]

Yikes, parties! Or, any gathering of people…I go into ‘lockdown’. If I know the peeps I’m not too bad, but I’ve just had too many bad experiences….it ususlly starts from my conversing, because once I’m ‘up and running’ then that’s it, there’s no stopping me, and if somebody takes umbrage at anything that I’ve uttered it just snowballs from there. When I was younger too many parties ended up as disasters as all hell broke loose, and so I tried to avoid them as much as possible, but when they couldn’t be avoided I banished myself to a corner with a self-applied ‘gag order’. It is weird because I can be very amusing, and I can be ‘the life of the party’, but it just makes life easier for everybody if I keep out of the way….do any of you seem to have an ability to ‘get a handle’ on people very easily? Even as a kid I seemed to have an ability to read people, like a card player I suppose, so that I could figure out what people were like no matter what they were saying, or no matter how nice or nasty they they were trying to act? I could see them, stripped naked in a sense (not in a physical way) and I’ve never been wrong! It’s a horrible thing, and it has caused much conflict within relationships. eg. my wife will introduce me to somebody, or a couple, and then interrogate me as to why I was so rude, or ambivalent towards that person or persons, and then I’d tell her why…this would prompt her to start nagging about me not being psychic etc. and she’d have that person, or persons, as her friend/s only to after a period of time discover that I was right all along! Sometimes I don’t even have to engage the people in dialogue, just by observing and listening I’ll have everybody nearby ‘pegged’…. 😆

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[allan wallace]

Hey Carrie, yeah, the dreaded queue in a supermarket, or the pains in the arse charging around with trolleys are a vexation to the spirit. I just want people to part like the Red Sea as I approach, and in a dream world as I approached a checkout line the people would all get out of my way and insist that I go before them…. 😆 My head feels like a potato being slowly boiled when shopping. I want to knock people over, and out of my way with my trolley…I hate the thought of people sticking their big nosey faces at the stuff being taken out of my trolley too. It annoys me no end as every purchase is being scrutinised by the nosey parkers around me….I sometimes imagine clobbering the stickybeaks over their heads with a tin of diced tomatoes…

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