Agoraphobia

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Case management- here we go again

Attempts at case management to help with my functional tasks have been unsatisfactory to say the least.
It has led to some medical trauma, especially after negligence that resulted in losing my housing voucher and me homeless (this was back in 2021).
Early this year I had an agency discharge me from case management services because they kept trying to push me to meet with a psychiatrist on a Saturday when I wasn’t comfortable or able to do so. (I contacted the local board of mental health and thankfully my grievance was substituted, however I did not want to stay with that agency).
I tried another agency and it was really hard to get there. I am pretty sure I posted on here about it.
Anyways, I am finally assigned to a new case manager. This one is at the agency I get art therapy from so my therapist is going to talk to the person before we have our appointment. That was yesterday. Today I got a call from him and I asked if he had talked to my therapist. He had not (I didn’t expect him to because it was barely 24 hrs later). So I told him he probably should talk to my therapist before we have an appointment. He agreed and hopefully they will talk and i will meet him next week.
Then I can finally get to things like the tests the doctors have asked me to do months ago but couldn’t make it into the offices to do 🙃
I am so grateful I can advocate for myself and that I have someone to help me explain it all. I also think this is a huge improvement because I really struggle to accept help, even though I need it. My art therapist and I are really working on allowing myself to need help.

#Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #ADHD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome #ChronicVestibularMigraine #Migraine

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How Do You Deal With Turbulence?

Many people struggle with turbulence when it comes to fear of flying. Some spend much of a flight anticipating turbulence, almost bracing for it throughout the flight while hoping it doesn't show up. Even though people know rationally in their minds that turbulence is a part of flying and doesn't present any reasonable danger (outside of not wearing a seatbelt during turbulence), the emotional experience of turbulence can feel like you are in danger— that catastrophe either is happening, or about to happen.

Fear of Turbulence

There's a lot that goes into fear of turbulence, psychologically and emotionally on deeper levels, and these underlying causes for the fear generally vary from person to person. The body can emotionally have a way of responding immediately to turbulence, whether it's tension, a pit in the stomach, heart rate increasing, sweaty palms, panic, rapid breathing, and more. Thoughts and worries can start to surface, imagining all of the bad things that could happen or may be happening, even if they're not actually happening. These "what if's" can take over when feeling out of control and scared. These are important to address while working to overcome fear of flying.

The vulnerability that comes along with being in a shaking plane can feel incredibly overwhelming. Many people with flying anxiety experience the moment turbulence starts as an indication everything is going wrong. It goes from smooth and stable to out of control and seemingly catastrophic very quickly.

Fear of Flying Programs and Even Many Therapies Miss on Treating Turbulence (and Flying Anxiety as a Whole)

Turbulence has stumped people over time who try to help with fear of flying. While I work with the whole range of fear of flying (from people who fly with anxiety to those who don't fly at at all), I do hear from a significant number of people who haven't been able to overcome the fear of turbulence in spite of all of the therapies and programs by airlines and pilots they have tried. They may learn a lot about turbulence, but still can't stop the emotional response when in it, or in the anticipation of it.

One of the reasons people often feel little improvement for fear of flying and turbulence is that the vast majority of what's out there uses typical emotional regulation techniques that have never really worked well in flying scenarios (imagery or breathing exercises). While these types of exercises can be useful for parts of the overall flying anxiety process, they don't tend to be so helpful with with calming anxiety and panic once it has taken over. These exercises often misdirect people into trying to control their feelings in ways that emotionally sets up an internal battle in these fearful moments. If you feel like your safety is truly being threatened, you can't just start meditating or deep breathing with any sort of effectiveness. It becomes a tug-of-war that often leaves people feeling more out of control and helpless.

So, How Can People Approach Turbulence in a Way that Can Be Helpful?

I've written a lot about my approach to helping people overcome fear of flying in other articles if you wish to read more. A significant piece of overcoming fear of flying is shifting how we experience flying and how we interact with it. The same goes for turbulence. When we get caught up in trying to make big feelings smaller, or trying to figuratively run away from the turbulence (which many common emotional regulation techniques aim to do), we are already fighting a losing battle. As much as we may urge to, we can't run away from the turbulence when we're in the plane with it.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to shift how we interact with the turbulence, as opposed to battling it for emotional control. Rather than trying to get away from it, it's important to start finding the middle ground between smooth and catastrophic, and start shifting the "what if's" into "what is". A lot of people who struggle with flying anxiety can find it difficult to locate that middle ground, which can lead to catastrophic feelings if any turbulence shows up (or a certain threshold of shaking or bumping in the plane is crossed).

A Turbulence Exercise

I have created a number of turbulence exercises that focuses on shifting how you engage with turbulence—effectively changing the interaction with it, locating the what is and the middle ground—which actually gives you the space to feel more empowered and in control in these moments. When you can coexist with the turbulence, you allow the room to start to experience that it's not as scary.

One starter exercise is to "rate the bumps" in turbulence.

What does this involve?

It's how it sounds. When the plane bumps or shakes, rate the intensity of the bump on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the strongest bump). Keep a list on your phone or write it down somewhere as you experience each bump. Keep writing down rating of each bump through turbulent moments—3/10, 6/10, 4/10, 3/10 again, etc. Try to be reasonable with it. If every bump is a 10/10 then try to challenge yourself to find a different number for as many as possible. As turbulence happens, continue to add to the list while looking back over the list to remind yourself of the middle ground between catastrophe and calm.

Building On This Technique and Overcoming Fear of Flying

This one exercise shouldn't be expected to cure your fear of turbulence on its own, so don't over expect from it. But it can hopefully start to lower the catastrophic feelings just a bit into a middle ground, as you allow yourself to experience a different interaction with turbulence. You're not running from it now, you're engaging with it. This allows the space to be in the room (or plane) with turbulence and, mixed in with other turbulence exercises and working through your own fear, this new interaction can go a long way towards overcoming fear of turbulence and flying anxiety as a whole.

#Phobia #fearofflying #Claustrophobia #PanicAttacks #Anxiety #Agoraphobia #flyinganxiety

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Gene sight testing and medication change

My psychiatrist and I did gene sight testing this month and today I had my appointment today.
I usually know a decent amount about this stuff, but I am confused (so is she). My “levels” are high and that means I lower doses of medications are recommended but I don’t feel anything on most meds. Even if they are for the first time I’ve tried them.

My cptsd symptoms mostly present as high energy, panic attacks, and a lot of body sensations. I rarely experience episodes of depression and we are pretty sure we have the correct diagnoses. But the anxiety is so hard even though I am doing so much work. I don’t know if it’s cortisol, or that my trauma response is still too high, or if it could be something to do with my thyroid or my liver. Anyways, I’m going to have to email my doctor because my therapist thought something was up physically since my anxiety is still so high.
My doctor is trying me on Limictal now. I’m concerned about issues with my memory because it already is pretty hard due to brain fog.

Anyways, thank you to anyone who reads this. If you can relate to any of this, please let me know. I’m usually good at identifying causes and I’m just so confused now.

#MentalHealth #CheckInWithMe #ChronicIllness #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome #POTS #Agoraphobia #Anxiety #PanicDisorder #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #ChronicVestibularMigraine #Migraine #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #ADHD #Disability

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I'm new here!

#PTSD #Gastroparesis #Endometriosis #Sarcoidosis #ColonicInertia #Agoraphobia #MastCellActivationSyndrome #Grief #ChronicIllness #MentalHealth #SensoryProcessingDisorder Hi, my name is Abigail, but with most I go by Abby! :) I’m known as abbysgotguts (although they do not work lol) on my medical-focused social media accounts, mainly on IG. I have a non-profit called Angels Of Strength™️ that I started with my Best Friend Ali. Our non-profit’s website & applications have been on a pause/hold since Ali suddenly passed away (she also was sick since a child) on July 21, 2024. I have been trying to get it going again, it is just so painfully heart breaking to do it without her. But also, there’s NO WAY I’m letting our non-profit just fade into non-existence. It was our baby and made us both so happy. So I’ve been working on ideas/designs to use to give a HUGE upgrade to our website (have a big memorial page for Ali, change around our business cards we put in each Warrior Bag and Hospital Donation we give, but edit it so those who receive a package/donation from us, not only know us and our non-profit’s name, like the card has always shown, but I want it to be clear Ali has passed, but that this is ALL for her from now until, well, forever. Ali will be the center of it all! I vow to make Ali’s name, heart, and smile known, said and remembered forever - even hundreds of years from now when we are all gone from this Earth!!) so I can guarantee/promise that AOS will be up and running as fast as I can physically can (and also, tbh, how fast I mentally/emotionally can….as fast as my heart can handle.). So I made this account to learn more about grief, coping, Ali, my, and our AOS recipients health struggles to make everything that much more personal. I have been sick since a young child and once I hit puberty, all h€|| broke loose! I have good days, bad days, and currently, extremely absolutely horribly bad days. I’m an open book. I’m very open with any question or topic someone comes to me to talk or ask about. Ali also got very suddenly sick as a young child, and like me, seemed to get sicker over time instead of better, with less to no treatments for our diagnoses, mainly just live with it at home in our daily lives with a lot of hospital visits shoved in there….A LOT. I’ve followed The Mighty for a long time now, but I’ve decided to actually make my own account to focus on things I need to and learn a lot more about things I both need and want to for myself, my family, my friends, and honestly just for my own curious mind sometimes!! XOXO
#MightyTogether

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Thankful Thursday

Part of gratitude is thanking ourselves or those around us for what they've done or are doing. It's so encouraging for someone to hear, or to even tell ourselves 🙂

Who's someone you can thank today?
#Addiction #AnorexiaNervosa #Agoraphobia #AutismSpectrumDisorder #ADHD #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #MentalHealth #BipolarDepression #MentalHealth #PTSD #Schizophrenia #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #Lupus #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #CeliacDisease #Grief #ChildLoss #SjogrensSyndrome

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I guess I’m going to be on the local news?

If something bothers me, I feel itchy until I feel like I have processed it. I need to do a lot of external processing. Idk why. I used to journal but that has been harder for me lately.

So I kind of have been talking about the things that have been really bothering me a lot. You know what I’m talking about. And how it links to my trauma. So I have been taking some action by making phone calls. At two points, I noticed some weird things going on, and I called the news.

They got back with me today; they knew about my history about being unhoused, about my education, etc from the information I mentioned when I called those two times. The woman was so nice and she helped me share my story about being disabled, unhoused, needing benefits, and why advocating is so important for me. She told me “okay, this story will air during the 5:00 news.”

✨✨✨Did I know this was an interview? No. I am wearing a zip up hoodie, dry shampoo in my hair, yesterday’s mascara under my eye from being slept on. ✨✨✨

😂 So I just shared a lot of information about my story on the local news where I grew up. Most people probably don’t know I was unhoused, especially people from my past. I could have decided against it. Especially because my family live here too. But if it gets out to anyone, I really am not upset. I am lucky to share a story about how hard it is because people don’t understand the disability rules. And it doesn’t get brought up enough. And there is a lot of stigma and misinformation I am willing to correct with data and lived experience. I think I have done a good job.

Anyways, let’s see what happens i guess?

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #ChronicVestibularMigraine #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome #Disability #MentalHealth #CheerMeOn

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What's Up Wednesday 😎

Just a friendly reminder. If something sets you back today- acknowledge the feeling, feel it and then let it go.

You can reset as many times as you need too.
I'm here for you, Mighties!
#Addiction #AutismSpectrumDisorder #Agoraphobia #Anxiety #AnorexiaNervosa #ADHD #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #MentalHealth #BipolarDepression #PTSD #Schizophrenia #Lupus #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #CeliacDisease #Grief

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