Anyone with agoraphobia?

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Hello. I wanted to reach out to other aspies, because I would assume agoraphobia is probably common in the community. I believe the last couple of months I have been developing agoraphobic behaviors again. In the past, I was diagnosed with agoraphobia. This was a long time before I had ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome.

I remember being terrified of leaving my house without someone. I could handle my own immediate neighbourhood, but to venture out further caused me distress.

When I was 15, I too public transit downtown. The transit center was in my immediate neighbourhood, but I asked my mum to give me written instructions, including a drawn map of where I get off the train, the street I walk down to get to the department store I wanted and instructions for getting home.

I was quite anxious, but I accomplished what I needed to do.

Even then, I knew that it was unusual for a fifteen year old teenager to be frightened of doing this alone.

I am still uneasy about venturing out of my comfort zone. I stay in the city (where I have lived my whole life) and knew the streets well. I do not like going someplace I have not been before as I get lost easily. When I am in a new place, I carry a tourist map (which shows both the street grid AND landmarks). Better still, I prefer to be with someone (friend, family member). However, I can manage myself if necessary.

Would this be agoraphobia?

I have battled with it over the years. I used to stand by the door at home when I was a child and stare at the world go by.
Sometimes when I was older I would dress up ready to go out and then be unable to find the courage to go outside the front door. Recently I have found it difficult because my neighbour opposite is bipolar and lies in wait ready for me to go outside so he can shout at me. I am finding this a major problem in my life at the moment.

I've had agoraphobia. There was a point in time where going more than two blocks from my house was unthinkable, and I preferred to not go outside at all.

For me, agoraphobic periods are always associated with extreme stress that I'm not able to cope with...little anxieties turn into a big undifferentiated cloud of anxiety which leaves me feeling so vulnerable that I end up hiding from the outside world. When I've sought help for the underlying stress and anxieties, my agoraphobia has gone away.

I think I'm suffering from Agoraphobia right now. On my days off, I am afraid of leaving the house, unless I planned to meet a friend somewhere.

I'm not sure if it's just extreme self-consciousness, though. I have a high anxiety disorder anyway, and I've also got no self-esteem, so maybe the two mixed together can cause Agoraphobia-like traits but may not actually be Agoraphobic. I'm afraid to go out alone because of the following points:-

-I feel I'm being watched
-I fear eye-contact with strangers
-I catch people staring at me
-I'm afraid of doing something embarrassing or stupid
-I fear too much attention from strangers
-I have anxieties crossing the roads
-I feel everybody is noticing every little move I do
-I am ashamed of myself for giving off weird vibes what other people pick up on, and so I try to show my face as little as I can to avoid my fragile state of mind becoming even weaker (to the point of an aggressive meltdown)

No offense, but sometimes I feel that WP is responsible for this, because I've read in a few places that ''all Aspies give off a vibe what makes them look different, even if you are acting normal, and you will never be able to run from it'', and ''NTs can pick up on any bit tiny bit of body language, so if you go out of line at all, they will emotionally attack you'', and those sorts of statements aren't very helpful for a 21-year-old who has self-esteem issues. People with self-esteem issues need to be reassured and/or complimented, not given ridiculous myths what will frighten me to death. But now I believe it's true, so it's seriously affecting my life and now I feel useless and stupid.

I never had a problem with it until I disclosed my AS to a few medical professionals and was treated as if I were (or outright told I must be) incompetent to make decisions about my life/care and incapable of parenting.

After that I became hugely self-conscious of any way in which I might appear "different." I became afraid first to take my kids to places like the grocery store alone, then to take them out at all alone, and finally to leave the house alone at all. I felt as if any atypical thing I did, no matter how small, would be noticed, judged, and likely involve horrific consequences.

I've since gotten some decent help, from people who understand that my AS is really not that big a deal and who told me that those peoples' reactions were inordinate and inappropriate.

I can go out again, just like I used to. Without even thinking much of it. Other than noticing that I'm doing it and being grateful.

To those who suffer, I commend you for the sheer bravery it can take to negotiate daily life.

I think the only reason I don't have agrophobia is because I still live at my moms place and don't like it there...so that makes me want to leave which= me going to my boyfriends house or my friends house up in the mountains usually. But to be honest being in public usually makes me anxious and I would rather sit in a cave lol.

My son has severe agoraphobia and Asperger's. What I'd like to know is how do you get past agoraphobia to find help? There are groups and meet-ups but they require you to go out to a place where there will be several people. He's been looking for a seeing eye person to help him get out.
What have any of you found to be helpful?
Thanks.

It never used to be a problem-- I simply didn't care what people thought. I was me, I went out, I didn't do anything horrific, I went home, end of story.

Since I was harassed for arguing with a doctor's opinion during my last pregnancy, it's gotten worse. I was afraid to leave the house without a script for exactly what I would say in every likely scenario.

Since things fell apart with my family and some stupid ER nurse tried to take my kids away for having panic attacks and disclosing my "condition," it's been for the most part insurmountable. I can't leave my bedroom without being overwhelmed by bitterness, hatred, and the terrifying knowledge that I am being constantly judged and found wanting.

I always knew I was being judged. I just didn't care. Since I've come to realize all the thousands of ways people can harm me and my family simply because I don't measure up to what should be in their opinion, though, it's an entirely different matter.

I was much higher-functioning when I cared less about people and their judgments. I had a little reprieve this fall, but that's over now. Those days are gone, apparently never to return.

I do have a touch of Agoraphobia. I find it hard to leave the house alone, and I feel that everybody's looking at me and I worry that I give off some sort of vibe what makes people think there is something wrong - even though I do my best to go out looking presentable and not do anything unusual like stimming or walking funny or anything. But my mum and my counsellor says people don't look at you for that because everybody's different and nobody's perfect. But I have now found myself feeling incredibly anxious of things happening to me what will draw everyone's attention to me. These are thoughts that run through my mind, causing me anxiety and pessimistic thoughts that they're going to happen and that I'm going to be humiliated or embarrassed:-

What if I slip right over on the ice in front of everyone?
What if I get a dog attacking me?
What if a bird poos on my head, or I get something stuck on my back or under my shoes and I don't notice it's there?
What if I have diarrhoea in the public toilets?
What if I trip up, in front of those intimidating youths over there?
What if somebody turfs me off this seat, where I am sitting to relax for a few minutes?
What if I keep getting in everyone's way in the shops, and people keep standing in my space, making me feel claustrophobic?
What if I be confronted by the bitchy girls who bullied me before?
What if I go into ''blind mode'' on the serve-yourself machine in Tescos, while people are watching and waiting for me to hurry up?
What if I can't find something what is sitting right in front of me, and I'm hunting around for it?
What if someone in authority yells at me in front of everyone?
What if the cashier forgets to scan a bar code and the alarm goes off as I walk out of the shop?
What if I get on the wrong bus?
What if I create a hazard when I cross the road, causing aggressive drivers to bib their horn at me?

I know these all look like such small things, but to a socially phobic person (or a person with Agoraphobia), these things seem so big to them, and important to avoid. I just don't like being in a situations where I look silly or feel awkward. I seem to have such a big fear of humiliation and rejection. I like to blend in the background, I don't want to be the center of attention in the street. It makes me feel very anxious, especially if I didn't plan for these things to happen. The reason why I don't like to go out alone is because of fear of one or more of these happening to me. It is normal to have these things embarrass you, but as an anxious person on the spectrum, I'm more likely to look more flustered and just look even more silly and feel even more silly. If I knew I gave off a confident, cheerful vibe, I obviously wouldn't let myself feel so embarrassed, but because I know I don't, (no matter how hard I try), I just get too embarrassed. And it causes Agoraphobia.

The ''what ifs'' above have all happened to me at some point in my life maybe once, maybe more than once, and the embarrassment has sticked with me right upto this day, and I have rounded them all together and discovered it's turned into one big anxiety, since these things are possible to happen to anybody - especially me. And it's the way everyone else reacts what is the problem. They all stare at you as though you've just committed a crime. It feels like they're making me turn it into a big deal, when it doesn't have to be. If somebody trips up, so what? I don't humiliate them, I don't find it funny, I don't judge the person, it's an accident, and accidents happen. But other people seem to look at me when I trip up as though I'm a spastic. And then I find myself feeling humiliated. And same goes with the rest of the points.

This is exactly what my son feels, but mostly he just doesn't go out. He'll empty the trash late at night when nobody is out. The same checking his mail.
Does anyone know how to overcome it?
He's looking for one on one contacts and for people to come to him or to take him out in carefully prepared and planned outings.

I too have experienced agoraphobia, and it's been in connection with where I've lived at the time. Sorry to hear about your neighbour CosmicRuss. I experienced a similar situation at one flat where I lived where a next door neighbour was bullying me and made allegations against me. I was scared to go out of my flat then, in case of bumping into him in the stair or the street.

In the last flat where I lived (before I decided to rent it out) I suffered from a sort of reverse agoraphobia, which involved being frightened of going back to the flat, rather than out of it. Groups of yobs and antisocial behaviour in the stair, right at my door, on a sometimes daily basis was what caused that to manifest.