|
Life Traps that Lead to Agoraphobia
by Stephen Price
Review of Chapter 4 "The Key to Agoraphobia" from
"Freedom from Agoraphobia" by Dr. Mark Eisenstadt
Life circumstances, or how you perceive your life
circumstances, can be a major contributing factor in the
onset of agoraphobia. In Freedom From Agoraphobia,
Dr. Mark Eisenstadt writes that the key to agoraphobia can
be summed up in one word – “traps.”
“We
develop panic attacks when we’re trapped in our lives,”
writes Dr. Eisenstadt. “We stop having panic attacks when we
escape from those traps. We go in and out of periods of
having panic attacks as we go in and out of periods of being
trapped in our lives.”
While treating patients with
agoraphobia for over 30 years, Dr. Eisenstadt observed an
interesting phenomenon. He noticed that people who experienced panic attacks and agoraphobia for a number of
years seemingly recovered for a period of time, only to
have the panic attacks return later. Dr. Eisenstadt also
noticed that in these cases, panic attacks would come and go
as the individual came in and out of life traps.
Dr. Eisenstadt describes life traps as
“any situation that we don’t want to be in but from which we
can see no acceptable escape.” Its feeling like you are
caught in bad circumstances in your life, but are powerless
to do anything about it.
Here are some examples of life traps:
A young woman is married to an abusive
alcoholic. He beats her and berates her on a regular basis.
He has threatened to kill her if she tries to leave him. She
is miserable in the relationship but she sees no way out.
She is afraid to stay with him, but even more afraid to
leave him.
A young man enters high school aspiring
to be a great athlete. His self-esteem and confidence among
peers comes largely from his athletic performance, but his
parents expect him to make straight As in honors courses.
In the past, they have gotten angry and punished him if his
grade dropped to a B in a class. Wanting to please his
parents, he signs up for honors courses and does his best to
succeed. When basketball season comes, after school
practices consume much of his study time. There is just not
enough time in the day to practice three hours with the
basketball team and study enough to do well in honors
courses. He dreams of being a great basketball player but
wants to please his parents. He doesn’t see how it is
possible to do both.
A single mother feels stuck in a
stressful work situation. She feels the need to take some
time off and consider a career change, but doesn’t feel like
she can afford to. She feels pressure to provide for her son
and that she does not have the freedom to risk quitting to
find a more fulfilling career.
A middle-aged woman feels like she can
no longer take care of her mother who is living with her.
Her mother has Alzheimer’s disease and needs more care than
the woman can give and still function in her job and family.
At the same time, she feels like she has to keep taking care
of her mother to be a good daughter. She feels caught
between giving up her own life and taking care of her
mother, or living with the guilt she would feel if she put
her mother in a skilled nursing facility.
According to Dr. Eisenstadt, traps may
be real or perceived. They can stem from a person’s actual
life circumstances or from a person’s subjective experience.
Traps can also vary in length. They may
last for months and even years, as in the previous examples,
or they may last a few days or even come and go within a
day. For example, a person who cannot say no and takes on
too many obligations may find himself in a seemingly
inescapable trap of trying to fulfill them all.
Whatever the trap is, according to Dr.
Eisenstadt, you can expect panic attacks to begin when you
enter the trap. If you stay caught in the trap too long, you
can expect the trap to manifest itself in your life,
confined to your home with agoraphobia.
back to
articles
home |
