• Carl@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    I can’t find anyone else in my apartment, except my cat. I don’t like to leave my apartment because of panic attacks.

    • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I was getting agoraphobia once, slowly crept into it by accident. It was so comfortable. I had to do a bit of exposure therapy mixed with breath work and meditation to dig myself out. Your path is likely different but that’s what did it for me.

        • Zephyr@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          There’s of course the everyday suggestions like exercise, diet, cutting out substances, getting out into nature. I was doing all of that but suffering from wild bouts of intense depression, gun in mouth type moments. It was like the harder I tried the harder it fought back to stay alive inside of me. I was really at the end of my rope, so tired of fighting, so afraid that no matter what it would never end. I even feared that death would not be a release (my favorite movie being wristcutters a Love story in which the punishment for suicide is you end up in a worse version of here).

          What did it for me personally was a good mushroom trip and moving from where I was and what I was doing for work. Others have found success other ways and with far less intense choices. Sometimes something small can unravel that knot so to speak.

          I swear I cried to the God I’m fairly sure doesn’t exist I ever thought about tossing away the gift of life I was given. I was practically kissing the ground in gratitude like a sailor who had been lost at sea.

          A seperate-ish circumstance, the agoraphobia crept in during covid when I was staying alone in a new city. I didn’t even notice it, until I went outside for the first time in two weeks and the sites and sounds were screeching at me and everyone’s eyes felt like they were dissecting me as if I were alien and they were area51 scientists. Not fun, but an intriguing experience. Had to work for a while to beat that experience back everytime I went out.

          Now even bad or unpleasant things that happen internally or externally I can find acceptance and gratitude in. I hope for your own personal resolution with this.

          Maybe another thing that helped is I personify things. The depression always felt to me like a little Voldemort horcruxe living inside me fighting to stay alive and same to the agoraphobia. I never identified them as me but as these beings or entities affecting me. That may be helpful for you, it may not be.