to those who have tried flooding, how did it go?
to those who mightn’t know, flooding means deliberately doing a big, sudden exposure with no escape. i ask this because, as someone who has been suffering from panic disorder and agoraphobia for the past five years, i plan to fly to my brother’s place in another city.
i’ve been a filmmaker since 2010, and i stopped working since i developed agoraphobia. besides white-knuckling through small exposures like grocery runs, i’ve mostly been housebound. some people i used to work with recently went to the Cannes film festival, and it sorta triggered this decision to try and reclaim my life.
since there’s no way of doing slow, graded exposure for flying (i’ve already tried visualizing myself in every part of the trip, and watched videos of airplane and airport scenes), the only thing i can do is to actually do it.
to people on here who have tried a very big, sudden exposure without practice, how did it go?