r/Agoraphobia

I (45m) have had agoraphobia since I can remember. I was extremely shy and quiet and gentle and kind...and we all know how people like that get treated. I was bullied endlessly to the point I started going bald at 14 and was completely bald by 16 (due to the stress and anger I felt every day). The fear I felt leaving the house every day to go endure the nightmare at school, and then the relief I felt when I got home, it broke me after experiencing it 1000's of times over and over all those years. Even when I wasn't in school, I would sometimes run into bullies...eventually I just became scared every time I left the house. I eventually dropped out in 1998 and lived a life a isolation. No girlfriends or relationships, aside from 1 friend I met through a radio event. I lived with my mom my whole adult life, and she saw my phobia first hand for decades. I would spend the next 20 years dirt poor, living with endless depression and anxiety and working as little as possible to pay bills and live in comfort, when suddenly in January of 2016, we receive an inheritance in a portfolio earning $50k-$100k a year in interest. I was promised 1/3rd, and was very happy about that.

We paid off the remaining loan on the house so my monthly bills were very low without a mortgage to pay into, and I went full hermit mode just living off the interest (at the time I spent around $6k a year while earing almost $20k interest). I didn't leave my house for 3 years (aside from doctor appointments once or twice a year)...it was the most amazing experience I have ever...experienced. My depression went away and I felt happy every day. This only lasted 3 years however, because in November 2018, I found out my mother gambled away 90% of the money, even the 1/3rd that belonged to me...you see, she had control of the portfolio because I certainly wasn't going to talk to any of the people in charge of it. She was my mother and I trusted her, I had no idea she was a gambling junkie...

So I was plunged back into this agoraphobic nightmare once again, only this time it was much worse...My depression and stress came back in a horrible way as I started searching for work, and I developed insomnia problems (something I had never had before)...so 7 years go by as I suffer endless ruminating thoughts constantly thinking about that money and missing those years that I was happy. Then in 2025, my mother tells me she is evicting me, and that I will not be getting my half of the house after it sells. I spent months arguing with her and recording all the arguments, and there were a few times I caught her on tape admitting to owing me the money. The house sold in December 2025, but I have not received my money yet. I moved to my grandmothers house to take care of her (she is on hospice) until I find a permanent place to live.

It has been 6 months since the house sold, and my mother has cut off communication with me. I don't know where she is living, and I do not have her phone number. She knows I have no paper trail for the money she owes me, and she is convinced I do not have the energy to get a lawyer and take her to court because of my sub conscious self imprisonment issues. She was right. It has been 6 months and I have sat around and done nothing. I am pathetic...however, 2 weeks ago I started calling lawyers. After telling my story to about 20 of them, I see now it was always hopeless anyway because no one will take my case. My mother owes me $64,000 (which is nothing compared to what she gambled away all those years ago) and she has just gone and taken it from me and left me with so much anger once again. I could start my life over with that money, but instead she has to take even the last little bit of that amazing dream I had. All I know anymore, is anger and pain. Every moment I am awake and conscious, is nothing but suffering because of my selfish junkie mother. I wish I could do something. I wish there was an organization that could help me sue her or help me find a lawyer. How am I suppose to go on with this endless rage inside?

This might just be me, but I've noticed my agoraphobia seems to get a little better, a little more manageable when spring and summer come around. I'm able to at least walk out into the backyard and water the plants, maybe even do some gardening. Shopping isn't so bad, but only when I'm with someone.

Then fall and winter come around and it's the worst. I'd rather not go out at all. Not even the backyard, not like I can tend to any plants because it's all dead by then. I can easily go for weeks without stepping foot outside. It peaks in the winter. Last minute christmas shopping in stores is incredibly difficult if it must be done.

I don't know if I have seasonal affective disorder because my depression is a year round thing. It doesn't get better or worse with the seasons. Just the agoraphobia and I'm not sure why.

I'm an 18yo girl and I feel hopeless.

I haven't been to school in over a year. I'm behind academically. I'll have to take another year of hs if I want to graduate.

I'm debating dropping out / getting a ged/caec.

I doubt I'll even be able to go to university.

I'm missing out on prom. I can't have the "first year of uni experience."

The people I grew up with are getting into their dream schools.

My old classmates are planning their prom outfits and living normal lives.

I'm just watching it all happen through Instagram. I feel like I've ended my life somehow.

I wish I could go back in time.

It's just hitting me how much I've lost.

Studied law at undergrad and law masters (part time) is currently in progress, both great unis and consistently got distinctions this year. I love law and I’m a massive nerd, and if I didn’t think it would be a waste of my money vs career prospects I’d do a PhD for sure.
I used to be completely confident and competent, and it’s not that I’m not confident now it’s more that I unfortunately had some life events that led to me developing intense panic attacks and agoraphobia. I’m in therapy etc, but I was just hoping someone on here could help me to figure out where I can plan to take my career? I find studying in person extremely challenging and I cannot always leave the house to go to study. I’m worried about how this would affect my career and obviously working through it but I need some direction and motivation. Also I need an income to be honest and I’m applying to remote part time jobs but feeling a bit disheartened as I haven’t got anywhere with that.

Any lawyers with anxiety/panic attacks I’d love to hear from you. Anyone working in person with anxiety/panic attacks also. And honestly anyone with any advice about how to approach this with working and career goals? For example, I don’t feel comfortable going down the barrister route anymore because I don’t feel I could commit the intensity of the job anymore. Any (kind) advice welcome! Please don’t say I need to suck it up and go into an in person job, as you probably don’t understand how intense this illness can be. And I did work when it was first forming, and it wasn’t my choice to leave but I had to due to housing issues and move area. It’s now a lot less possible and obviously harder to get back in but also my agoraphobia didn’t exist then.
Thanks!!

Feeling kinda lonely I’m a 25f looking for other agoraphobic female friends

Yesterday I didn't think I could be able to go to bible study with my mother.

But she had been so sad about people being rude to her that I pushed my anxieties aside and got out of my room, to go with her for the first time in almost two years!

I was not as nervous as I thought I would be, slightly anxious but I never ended up having a panic attack. I even walked home by myself when she stayed behind to talk to a sister in private. (granted, the church is right next to our house, but this was still a big deal for me).

I actually had a nice albeit slightly awkward time, I hope I'll be able to attend it again next week. :)

Hi,

I need to go to the post office and drop off 4 parcels. It’s simply 5 minutes away. How do I do it?

After the traumas 3 years ago I went to the post office like I would normally go out and had a strange headache while I was in the queue. It was super strange. There was this whole other strange feeling happening too distracting me from being present, that time I had no idea trauma could cause anything like this, that walk back home was so hard. It felt like I was carrying weight and dragging myself.

When I got home I couldn’t understand what happened and why it was so hard to just to the post office and back. I cried and thought I was just unwell I rested and hoped I’ll be better. I was fine a day or two later, so I thought. This progressively got worse each time I went out. Then one day it became full blown dissociation derealisation. Then I completely stopped going out.

Trauma did this to me, it was all family trauma so I say my family did this to be. I can’t not get angry at them each time I struggled in last 3 years with trauma responses.

Back to the reason I am posting this. How do I go to the post office, be patient in the queue, send 4 parcels and come back? Please respond with every and any tips and encouragement I really need it.

Looking forward to getting some advice. Thank you. ☺️

I read stories of people saying they’ve been full on struggling with bad anxiety their whole life and they don’t get better. I’m terrified of that happening for me.

I have PTSD and apparently my vagus nerve was stuck in freeze paralysis. I’m just starting to see a specialist to try help it get better.

I’ve been dealing with agoraphobia for 10 years since 20 years old. It got better from 23 to 25 where I was able to live life with way less anxiety and even go out for long walks by myself and get public transport, get in the car with friends.

But since I had psychosis again at 25 since I came out of it I’ve felt stuck for the past 5 years. I’m so so tired of dealing with the anxiety and I have to take lorazepam a few times a week to even cope going out with my safe person to get things done.

I have a missing molar that sucks.

It's been really long since I've been able to make phone calls for self care. But I did it!!

I'm still shaking and I don't think I'll be able to eat for a lil longer but I made the damn callllllll!

Hi! Over the past year I read this Reddit on and off while having pretty severe agoraphobia. My agoraphobia (which is still mildly present) probably started like 5 years ago when I had my first panic attack under the influence of cannabis and (what I thought was) LSD. I didn't even know what a panic attack was and naturally thought I was about to die. After that I started reading about it and started exercising, didn't do drugs anymore, or even alcohol. But I had flashbacks of this traumatic event and started developing a fear of actually having a panic attack in a public setting, or while driving. To make the story short, fear began to dictate my decisions and my life became smaller and smaller, until I couldn't drive my car or leave my mom's house. I don't want to make this too personal as what I want is to share what helped me to overcome this and eventually, not just go out, but to even move out and be able to drive again.

This is what I tried that didn't work out:

• Avoiding the difficult situations
• Tried 3 different therapists (1 hour sessions are too short to deal with this problem imo and I didn't have much $$ at the time)
• Prescribed anxiolytics (Fixes the symptoms but actually makes it worse because your nervous system "learns" that the way to deal with a panic attack is to take the pill.
• Being too greedy with the expositions. If you end up getting up to a 9 or 10 on a panic attack scale, that unfortunately does more harm than good. I needed to take things slowly. Baby steps, but always pushing just a little more.

This is what worked for me:

• Using AI (ChatGPT) as a means to 1) vomit all my thoughts and get somewhat objective feedback and 2) receive some actually useful tips.
• Understanding that I, perhaps without knowing, trained my nervous system to fire up at anything. And that I needed to re-train it, like a muscle.
• Doing controlled expositions even if it was extremely hard. And I mean extremely hard at first. Slowly and very methodically, I started to go out on small walks or just getting into the car without turning it on. The idea is to periodically increase the weight.
• Understanding that what you will feel is an adrenaline rush and that just like a wave, it will pass.
• Exercising before going out. Burn out some of the excess energy that the nervous system uses for the panic attacks.
• SLEEP WELL before going out. This is huge. I noticed that the most difficult expositions happened at times where my sleep wasn't great.
• So basically exercise + good sleep + eating healthily BEFORE the expositions made it so much easier.
• I tried to not to punish myself when I wasn't able to do something. When you say "I HAVE to do this" it makes things harder. Just doing what I could at the moment, even if it was just tiny bit more than the last time, was good enough.
• Understanding that I needed to live a life more in accordance with my values (this meant I needed to move out from my mom's house).

And then I slowly was able to leave the house and drive again. There were milestones or as I would call it "Boss fights". One of those was the time I was about to meet my current landlord. My mind going to a thousand places. "Am I going to make a scene?" "What's everyone going to think if I suddenly leave the meeting" etc, stuff like that. I'm happy I was able to brute force my way into that.

Currently living a pretty peaceful life, and I've been living in this place for 2 months now. I wouldn't say I am "cured" because still, when I don't sleep well, or I don't exercise for many days, I get anxious. I do get it. It just doesn't dictate my actions for now. Hopefully this can be of help to someone as some other great posts on this Reddit were helpful to me. Cheers!

Hi all, I’m not really a Reddit user but I’ve been desperately seeking a community of people like me and thought this would be a good place to find it!

Last year I struggled with agoraphobia quite badly, I would leave just to go on a walk or go to the convenience store and breakdown crying on my porch because I couldn’t do it. I got better over a period of months with heavy medication and exposure therapy but unfortunately it’s back again due to a sequence of panic attacks I had while in public.

However, it’s much different now because I don’t have the financial support I used to have from family and I have a boyfriend who I’d very much like to keep. My life is completely on hold once again. No income because I can barely leave the house, I’ve put my education on hold again, I’ve isolated myself from friends and family, I find joy in nothing.

At 22 I’m seeing people travel the world, move away from home, and just having fun. It feels so isolating and depressing that this is how I’m spending this time in my life. Not to mention how disappointed in myself I am after coming so far just to be right back where I started.

My boyfriend and I met when I was doing good, he’s an amazing person and so supportive of me - he’s even paying for my therapy! But like most people he doesn’t understand, he’s very outgoing and social. I can’t help but wonder when he’ll get tired of this, and I feel very guilty that he’s taken on a lot of the financial aspects of our relationship.

As for my friends, I’ve isolated myself from pretty much all of them which I also feel guilty for. It’s just hard for me to be completely honest with people about this because it’s not exactly something I’m proud of. The one friend I haven’t isolated myself from is just an angel, she doesn’t push my boundaries but sometimes it feels like she walks on egg shells around me because she’s scared I’ll be anxious, my family that know act like that as well.

I’m so tired of feeling like this, but I’m here to take accountability and support you all through your journeys! <3

Hey everyone. A close family member of mine has their birthday coming up really soon and there’s going to be a birthday dinner. At first I assumed it was just going to be us and them and while that stressed me out I knew I could front it out. Then it’s revealed there’s more family coming. At first it really stressed me out but as time went on I’ve convinced myself that I can try my best to just go and face it. Now I’ve been told that there’s more people going that I don’t even know and I’m really panicking. The constant changing of what’s happening and who’s going is really stressing me out. I haven’t been out to dinner with the person whose birthday it is in about a year. The other family members I’ve barely seen maybe since before Covid. I’d normally say I can’t go but the age my family member is turning is a big deal for her and she wants everybody there. Does anyone have any tips on how I can get through this? I haven’t been in a situation like this for a very long time and it would look really bad for me if I back out of it

i’m feeling alone rn

Hello. i believe i have very intense anxiety and even agoraphobia and so im here asking for advice !!

Ive been very very very scared of leaving my home since probably 2021 or a little after covid started. i had to stay inside because of quarantine obviously and it somehow turned into me being very scared to leave the house. i dont feel safe outside, i feel like everyone is judging and staring at me and i feel something bad is to happen.

so anywho, im just asking does anyone have any tips on how i can start trying to get outside again ?? i dont feel as scared but i cant push myself for some reason. but im trying because i want to start living normally again. i hate missing out on things because of my fears !!! i hope that was enough info, thanks !

In the car for 3 hours hated it wanted to go home. Just driving around aimlessly felt so painful im physically exhausted running on no sleep I thought we would hit some errands but they didn't want to do anything and left it up to me so we just drove What else would I do? I don't go out enough to know whats happening in town

I fell asleep as I was getting bored of being on my phone yet being outside and it was so unrestful, I woke up as we were getting home and I was so infuriated on the inside that I wasted 3 hours doing nothing so uncomfortably when I could have been home actually doing something

I feel miserable and unproductive being inside not leaving the house and I feel miserable and unproductive being outisde when it's not for anything

I hate this I have no life nothing to do no one to fucking hangout with thats a managable distance for it to be a regular thing I fucking hate this I have no friends

I wasn't even anxious as I was with a person I consider safe but the challenge is what agoraphobia has done to me i have nothing to me. its taken away all of the good things and mainly stopped me from developing any kind of a fucking life to return to

Hi! I just want to tell my story to those of you who need to hear to this. You CAN get better. I hate the fact that I understand why people end their lives, but it also gives me empathy. I can never blame anyone who makes that choice. But I want you to know that you don’t have to. You don’t have to live in constant fear. I’m living proof that you can get better.

I’ve had agoraphobia since I was 12 years old. At first I only struggled with vehicles as a result of my first panic attack on an airplane. This “mild” agoraphobia lasted until 2023. I was in a semi-bad relationship (nice guy but wrong guy for me) which led to the hardest period of my life. I was super depressed, my anxiety was through the roof and I soon couldn’t get out of my apartment.

Since I was 14 my psychologist tried to get me on antidepressants, however I’m a stubborn individual and refused until I had tried everything. So I did! I tried lots of different diets (healing gut health and stuff), I worked out regularly, cut alcohol/caffeine/sugar, routines, CBT, breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, spending time in nature, art, journaling, praying. Believe me, if I wouldn’t have had anxiety, I would be the healthiest person alive. But it never went away.

At my lowest I really considered if this was a life worth living. Even if I never left my apartment I still had panic attacks. I was so afraid of my own mind and body, constantly checking my heart rate and doing stroke tests to double check that I wasn’t dying. It is a different kind of torture to be afraid of living but also being scared to die.

An old friend of mine suddenly came back in my life (who was well aware of my struggles) and pushed me to face my fears. He enlightened the spark in me that I needed. I spoke to my doctor and told him to give me everything that he got. I was so tired of constantly being scared.

This was one year ago. Today I am happy, and 99% anxiety-free. In august I’m traveling Europe with some friends, something I never thought was possible. I suffered for 10 years. And if I can do it, so can you!

I know how hard it is. And it will get even harder when you decide to live. My best advice is anger. Fuck this phobia. Fuck your fucked up brain and nervous system. You CAN take control in your life, you have it in you!! You haven’t made it this far to just give up!

I hope this story reaches you who need it. Just hang in there and believe in a future where you’re happy, it is possible🫶🏼🫶🏼

Edit:
Just wanted to add something my friend thought would be helpful for anyone here. She remembered a time where I would read posts like this and couldn’t believe that my life ever could change. It seemed so far away. So please believe me when I say that you CAN live a normal life one day❤️

I've been completely homebound for 2-3 years and sparingly left for major events like weddings post COVID. I have not seen any kind of therapist but I've started my exposure therapy. I took out the garbage for the first time in years on Saturday which is about a minute walk and then yesterday I went downstairs and outside again.

So I'm making progress and it's harder then quitting smoking but what I'm really struggling with what I think is grief.

I've dealt with a lot of grief in my life. I've lost a parent in my teens, friends along the way, and pets that were too young to go. I know grief and this feels exactly like grief. It is like I'm grieving the time that has been taken from me or something?

I don't think I'm special in this, this has to be a common side effect of what we've experienced. Any advise or wisdom in understanding these feelings?

In addition to agoraphobia and panic disorder I struggle with PMDD (a severe form of PMS that causes intense anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, mood swings, etc.) I'm also on the autism spectrum.

I just feel like I have too many things stacked against me and I'll never be able to recover or enjoy my life again. I don't know why I even try.

I feel like I'm trapped in a life that I don't want to live.

My baseline seems to be below the normal level of a functioning human. No matter how much work I put in, over years and years, I get setback to the beginning. I haven't experienced that getting better people talk about, I just seem to be playing a rigged game of snakes and ladders.

I can do things sometimes, but it takes a lot of effort and it doesn't get easier. It's really draining. If I stop pushing, I have a setback or any other reason, I slide right back to the start. The worst part is the erosion of my personality. I don't really know who I am anymore.

A bit dramatic maybe. I don't know. Just tiring. Venting I guess.

It's been months since I've gone to a doctor's appointment because I simply can't leave the house. I'm 17 years old, and my mother doesn't even like going with me because she says I'm old enough to go alone. Even when I enter the rooms, everything comes crashing down on me. I hate having to go out and interact with other people. I have an appointment scheduled for today, and I'm having an anxiety attack just thinking about it. I can't do it. I know what people say about exposure therapy, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I spent two years of my life walking to school every day, with the streets full of people, far from home, and absolutely nothing improved. On the contrary, it seems I've become more afraid to go out. I hate having to go through this every time—appointments, exams, check-ups—it's so humiliating for my mind. Sometimes I just want to die. I know I need to go out, but I never want to. Even though I hate my life trapped inside the house, I hate being outside even more. I don't know what to do. I don't want to go to that appointment, and I probably won't. To hell with my health at this point. It's better to die than to live a life like this.