veritas
Member
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2016
- Messages
- 40
Hi everyone!
Does anyone have any resources for dealing with agoraphobia?
I have a public speaking phobia, and learned recently what I'd suspected for years - it's not (at least in my case) a social phobia. I don't have any problem socializing or talking to individuals, or talking with groups on a purely social level. I have, however, always had a fear of being trapped in a given situation, and the more personally "important" the situation, the more heightened the fear. Can this specific fear response be traced to something a bit more tangible, like serotonin, possibly? Is there any neurochemical differentiation between, say, social phobia vs. agoraphobia? Or even claustrophobia?
With public speaking, you can't easily dismiss yourself from the room in the middle of whatever you're talking about, you're more or less "locked in," so for me there's an overwhelming feeling of being trapped whenever I've had to speak. I've worked in tech for the last 10 years, which leans increasingly more toward what I see as almost hyper-social participation. What attracted me to this job, since I was little, was the idea that I could sit in a dark room and plink on a computer endlessly, not so I could participate in hackathons every weekend and then give a brown bag about it.
I've read several books about public speaking, in different formats (from "how to become excellent at public speaking!" to "how to overcome your fear of it"), I've tried NLP, EFT, acupressure, I've been eating more or less a PUFA-free/"Peat" diet for over a year (this has greatly benefited my adrenals and daily stress reactions, though doesn't solve the phobia), various supplements, as well as Xanax and beta blockers. The pharma route just merely touches the symptoms, even when I double the dose of each.
Any recommendations would be very much appreciated! Thanks everyone.
Does anyone have any resources for dealing with agoraphobia?
I have a public speaking phobia, and learned recently what I'd suspected for years - it's not (at least in my case) a social phobia. I don't have any problem socializing or talking to individuals, or talking with groups on a purely social level. I have, however, always had a fear of being trapped in a given situation, and the more personally "important" the situation, the more heightened the fear. Can this specific fear response be traced to something a bit more tangible, like serotonin, possibly? Is there any neurochemical differentiation between, say, social phobia vs. agoraphobia? Or even claustrophobia?
With public speaking, you can't easily dismiss yourself from the room in the middle of whatever you're talking about, you're more or less "locked in," so for me there's an overwhelming feeling of being trapped whenever I've had to speak. I've worked in tech for the last 10 years, which leans increasingly more toward what I see as almost hyper-social participation. What attracted me to this job, since I was little, was the idea that I could sit in a dark room and plink on a computer endlessly, not so I could participate in hackathons every weekend and then give a brown bag about it.
I've read several books about public speaking, in different formats (from "how to become excellent at public speaking!" to "how to overcome your fear of it"), I've tried NLP, EFT, acupressure, I've been eating more or less a PUFA-free/"Peat" diet for over a year (this has greatly benefited my adrenals and daily stress reactions, though doesn't solve the phobia), various supplements, as well as Xanax and beta blockers. The pharma route just merely touches the symptoms, even when I double the dose of each.
Any recommendations would be very much appreciated! Thanks everyone.
