[BEKAH199]

Hi
Need advice on how to deal the day by day of Depression anxiety and agoraphobia.

I have never had full out agoraphobia. To be sure I had some pretty powerful anxiety but it never was bad enough to prevent me from leaving the house. Still, doing so presented great difficulty. I would plan my life around doing errands when I would least likely encounter other people. Even getting my laundry done in the building, taking out my garbage, and fetching my mail from the foyer had to be well planned.

I had a great psychiatrist who used CBT in her practise. In addition to the CBT work (Catastrophic Thinking work and that regarding my self-worth helped a great deal) we did what was called exposure therapy. I was doing for example groceries at three in the morning. We went later every visit until I was able to do so at the height of the day. She even came with me.

This work has made it easier. Oh, I still have big time anxiety but I now have the skills to challenge those thoughts.

One CBT assignment was to make two lists. The first was a list of 'to what advantage is thinking this way to me?' The second list, 'to what disadvantage do I have of thinking that way?' The disadvantage list was always longer. This in turn made it easier to challenge those anxious thoughts.