Ellen Isaksen - Coexisting With Agoraphobia, Anxiety & Panic Attac

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Ellen Isaksen

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoymentonly. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.If you would like to share this book with another person, pleasepurchase an additional copy for each recipient. If youre readingthis book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for youruse only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer andpurchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work ofthis author.

Usually the Foreword of a book is reservedfor experts with massive amounts of very official-looking lettersfollowing his or her name and some pretty impressive professionaltitles. I have neither. Well, I guess if I had to give myself atitle, it would be Professional Scared Person. And I certainlyconsider myself an expert on the subject of anxiety disorders,having both a degree in psychology and lived with agoraphobia myentire adult life. I have also been housebound with this disordersince 1986. My other qualification for writing this is that Ellenand I have been close friends for well over 25 years, even thoughwe have never met in person. Could agoraphobia be the mother ofinvention? I think so

Okay, enough about me. After all, I amsupposed to be saying wonderful things about Ellen and herwonderful book. And they both are. Anyone suffering from any typeof anxiety disorder, from a simple phobia to full-blown agoraphobiacan find a mountain of useful information between these covers(virtual or otherwise). She has broken down the psycho-babble andcreated a handbook that is easy to comprehend, humorous andultimately readable. Ellen not only talks the talk, she has walkedthe walk. Having had most of the same struggles as Ellen, I caneasily identify with just about everything she addresses. What isespecially vital to me is this books relevance to fellowsufferers, no matter what stage of recovery they are in. Her mostimportant message is pure and simple: Accept yourself whatever yourlimitations and build a life despite them.

And that is a very powerful message

Luci Waddell

Professional Scared Person

This book came about as a result of a seriesof interviews that I did with a reporter from the Tampa BayTimes by the name of Zack Peterson. Zack discovered my firstbook, Behind These Eyes: One Agoraphobics Journey To AMeaningful Life online and asked me if Id be willing to talkto him about my book and my life. I agreed and had to spend longperiods of time examining my life and how I made it work. Theinformation in this book as well as my YouTube videos are a resultof that introspection and those interviews. Thank you Zack forgetting the ball rolling!

I would also like to thank Nat for herwonderful work in formatting this book (as well as my memoir) sothat they might appear in a readable manner for publicpresentation. Her job is indeed not for the faint of heart! Natalways goes the extra mile and throws in a hefty dose of patienceand good-naturedness for good measure. She lives in Croatia andcame to me as a result of an online search for someone to assist mewith the daunting task of getting all my material ready forpublication both in print and as an eBook. She is a wizard and ablessing! Thank you so much Natmay you always be performingyour valuable service. I know you think you are only tech support,but you are so much more than that to me!

Next, Id like to thank my good friend andeditor, Luci Waddell for her endless valuable input. Sheworked with me on both books as well and always helps to make mywords sound so much smarter than they started out! We are bothagoraphobic and have an understanding that goes beyond words.

A very special thank you goes out to my dearJulie for not giving up on her search until she found me.

Ultimately, Id like to give thanks to TheUniverse. I am blessed in so many ways.

Hi, my name is Ellen Isaksen and I would liketo talk to you about what it is like to live life as anagoraphobic. Initially, I will be giving you a brief backgroundabout myself and what exactly agoraphobia is. Please be advisedthat anything mentioned here is only information about myself thatI am sharing in hopes that some of it might be helpful to you. Itis not meant as a recommendation that you adjust your life in anyway. My main qualification is the fact that I have lived personallywith anxiety and agoraphobia for over five decades. Please justtake the best and leave the rest.

Agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder inwhich you fear, and usually avoid, places or situations that mightcause your anxiety levels to rise, often to the point of panic, orthat make you feel trapped or helpless. The reaction to theseplaces and/or circumstances may increase in number and intensityover time and become so strong and terrifying that you eventuallyavoid them completely. Ultimately you begin to avoid all outsidesituations for fear that you might have a reaction and you remainwithin the confines of your home or safe place. Finally, the mereanticipation of having an anxiety reaction or panic attack isenough to keep you from venturing out. This is what Dr. ClaireWeekes, a pioneer in the field of agoraphobia, calls Second Fear,which adds an additional difficulty to the original problem of theactual panic or anxiety reaction. There is much written aboutagoraphobia these days so I wont spend much time on technicaldata, but rather would like to share with you what it is actuallylike to live ones life as an agoraphobic from the agoraphobicspoint of view. I have plenty of experience with it since, as Imentioned, I myself have been challenged with severe anxiety, panicand agoraphobic since about age 13. I have also dealt with it fromthe other side of the desk as a counselor. I am now 66 years oldand have managed to live a relatively productive life ofcoexistence with my challenge, especially since I gave up the ideathat I had to be like everyone else in order to have any semblanceof a normal life. I finally got to a point where I simply madepeace with my life as it was and decided to just play the hand Iwas dealt.

While I totally support whatever effort isbeing taken to overcome anxiety and fears, my main focus is onthose challenged with the most severe forms of anxiety andagoraphobia and for whom standard therapies and medications havenot produced the desired results. I believe this will also beextremely helpful information for those who need coping skillswhile undergoing their current method of treatment. I fell betweenthe cracks in the medical community and went over twenty yearsundiagnosed. I had so many years, decades even where I developedconditioned responses to my anxiety and that conditioning was verydifficult to overcome. You need not fear that happening to youhowever, as there is so much more known about agoraphobia today andthere are always new medications and therapies on the horizon. Backin the early 60s when I had my first major episode withpanic and agoraphobia, the disorder was not recognized. I went froma stable, honors student in grammar school and early high school toa homebound teenager in what seemed to be the blink of an eye! ButI am here to tell you that a full and meaningful life can still behad even after such an experience. While I have never fullyrecovered, I have had a life with many interesting and rewardingtwists and turns, and ultimately even ended up having a career as aPsychiatric Social Worker. I have had many good friends andpersonal relationships as well. It seemed however, that Id justwork my way into the outside world and then something would happenand Id end up housebound again. For the almost eighteen yearswhile I was getting my college degrees and working full time in theoutside world, I relied upon alcohol to function. Thankfully,around 1982 I managed to give up alcohol completely. My book,