New here

[S]

Hi,
Well, I'm new here, so thought I'd make a post. I'm 16, and have suffered from anxiety definitely since I was about 10, but it was probably present before that.
I'm not sure that I have social anxiety, it's not something I've really thought about, but I do definitely have agoraphobia, and this is the most active forum for agoraphobia I can find, and from reading the posts here, I can identify to a lot of it, whether or not I have social anxiety.

I'm trying to go out somewhere at least once a day, and have done so consecutively for the last 21 days, but I cant get that far from my house so it feels like I cant do much at all worthwhile.

I'm hoping that here will be somewhere I can talk to people because it's difficult for people who havent experienced this to understand.

S
xxxxxx

 

[pinkputter]

HEY! I was glad to find this forum, and I'm glad you did too!! Well, I have SA and kind of an underlying form of anxiety with everything....and slighty agoraphobic.

You said you related to a lot of people's stories on here. Well, in my understanding agoraphobia is a form of social anxiety since you fear things in public....pretty much everything social is in public.

Whats your definition on agoraphobia????????

 

[S]

Well, I think that I might have SA, but my agoraphobia is mostly to do with health anxiety, so, for me, I see my agoraphobia as being part of that because my main reasons for finding it hard to go outside are that I think I'll get ill while out of my "safe place", and there wont be anyone to help me. And just that having a panic attack outside is an experience that I really dont want to happen, despite that I hardly ever get panic attacks any more. After that are all the SA-related reasons, like that I dont want to look stupid if I have a panic attack, that it makes me really nervous being around people of a similar age to me and I feel really embarrassed. Those are always secondary, so I am more focused on my HA because that's my main anxiety-based diagnosis.

Pinkputter - it's an interesting view about all social things being in public, I can see what you mean. It made me think more about that. Hopefully my long rambling text above this will explain how I've always seen agoraphobia. I didnt really give a "definition" as such, because I guess that there are lots of reasons people are agoraphobic, though I've never found anything even on the internet that relates Health Anxiety to agoraphobia, so I feel pretty alone with that!