I can't get on with your life.
So I decided to just forget the tranquilizers.
I just live with anxiety.
So.
What about your family?
How did it affect your kids?
Well my two older sons were in their late teens and I think Tim, my youngest was around
ten.
So for the two older boys they had pretty active social lives and they weren't home
a lot.
They didn't know.
They didn't know anything about them.
And when it finally got so bad where I was house bound the two older boys no longer lived
at home.
But Tim was there with me and he kind of saw the gradual changes.
And for my husband we did a lot of things.
We bowled in a bowling league.
We were real social.
We had a lot of friends.
And so our social life pretty much went down the tubes.
I mean he saw me go from being this working person to not being able to do anything.
And so instead of sharing the fun things that we used to do together we shared my anxiety.
And that became the whole focus of life I believe.
Gary this is Gary's husband.
Karen's husband Gary.
Would you stand up please.
Talk about this situation with me.
Were you always supportive or did you ever feel like you were just going to lose it.
I felt like I was going to lose it a couple times.
But I supported her.
It was a tough go for and I felt sorry for her more than anything because it was just
crippling her.
So we just worked it out.
Best we could.
Now who's losing it here because did I just call you the wrong name.
That's cool.
Her husband's name is Ed but Gary is one of the sons.
I'm not totally wacko here.
Gary and Tom would you all stand up please.
How much were you aware of what was going on at home with mom.
Well I really wasn't.
He really caught on to what was going on.
Basically I didn't just slip right past me.
She hit it for a long time but I was selling cars at the time and she needed a car so we
picked one up where I was working and I asked her to take it out on the freeway to drive
it.
And she got really it was unusual.
And I wasn't living at home at the time so this is the first time that I caught it.
And so I thought gee that's weird that's kind of strange.
But I blew it off.
I figured well if she doesn't want to drive on the freeway that's up to her.
Did any of you ever get angry that this thing could begin to control life.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Every time we got to go someplace we'd get the front door and all of a sudden we couldn't
go.
And we'd just stand there all dressed up no place to go.
I want to talk with Karen when we come back about what people like you can do to help
the agoraphobic and what personality types are most prone to be affected.
We'll take a break and talk more after this.
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I want you to meet this is Janice who is an agoraphobic.
Are you okay?
This has got to be very hard.
You're in a situation where you're married and you say your husband is more or less sabotaging
you with the help for this.
What's happening?
Well he's probably not the most sensitive person and it's kind of hard when you're a person
that's under a lot of stress.
Maybe a spouse that's not that kind about it.
My husband didn't want to be inconvenienced by what I couldn't do.
If you need to stay home that's fine.
Don't expect me to put my life on hold.
That must be very painful for you.
Does he say things that are hurtful Janice?
Maybe not hurtful but it's just hard when you're under that much stress.
To have a partner that also adds to it becomes too much.
Well you've really had to just dig down and hear.
You've had to rely on your own inner strength to fight this battle.
Because it wasn't something we talked about.
I didn't tell my friends and I didn't tell my husband.
We didn't talk about it.
So it's kind of you went all by yourself.
Just kind of kept working through the pain.
That sounds so scary to me Karen.
Is that typical that there will be somebody who will minimize it and degrade the individual?
No.
I was really surprised when I started to do the research for my book.
I knew Janice and I went through the same anxiety program together.
I saw that I had support but I saw people like Jan who didn't have the support.
And the attitude of the family is so important in recovery.
They need to create a therapeutic climate for this person to get well in.
To buffer them from the stresses of the outside world.
They have to have a place where they can go home.
Because when you have this disorder usually you have a safe place and a safe person.
Usually your safe person is your spouse.
Now if your safe person isn't your spouse and he's creating anxiety you never get a
chance to get away from all of that.
He doesn't feel safe to you Janice.
Well you know I've gotten a lot better.
But for me sometimes because of the high anxiety I would choose not to go on family outings.
Because I not only have the stress of the outing but the stress of my husband.
Can I just add I'm becoming more familiar with the characteristics of agoraphobia.
Is it hard for you for me to get close like this?
Is it?
Does that?
Okay.
What should Gary, her husband or any husband, anybody dealing with an agoraphobic, what should
they do?
Well the number one thing they can do is to become educated.
Learn that this is a real disorder.
It is not a mental disorder.
It is an anxiety disorder.
Is it an emotional problem?
Well it is emotional in nature in that the type of people that have this are, there seems
to be characteristics that seem to show up in everyone who comes down with it.
They are highly emotional, very sensitive, they're perfectionist, they're worrier.
They have wonderful qualities.
They're above average intelligence and when they don't have to inhibit their feelings
and they can be themselves, they're wonderful employees.
A doctor once told me that he considers this to be a disorder of quality people.
Interesting because it seems like people who suffer from it are the kind of people you'd
want for a pal.
That you'd want a friend who would go the extra mile, who's going to be there for you,
who's concerned about you.
I had a woman tell me one time that the very things that predisposed her husband to come
down with this disorder in the first place were the very things that she fell in love
with him for.
Exactly.
You're a quality person, Janice.
Good luck to you.
Thanks so much.
A chip to lifelong recovery when we come back.
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There is good news about agoraphobia.
Seventy to ninety percent of the people who have it can experience lifelong recovery.
So this is not like a dark hole that gets smaller and smaller.
You had a question.
My question is for Ruth.
Who takes care of you now that your husband's gone?
Who does your grocery shopping and everything you need done for you?
I can do some of it.
My older daughter does a lot of it.
A lot of the burden of things that I can't do has fallen on her.
But I try to do as much as I can.
Are you angry?
Are any of you angry at what this has stolen from your lives?
Absolutely.
What are you most angry at Ruth?
What am I most angry at?
Let's forget about the husband and the children.
I mean this is fourteen years of your life that you can't get back.
I'm angry at myself.
How could I have allowed this to happen?
I used to be a very active outgoing person.
And here I am.
How dare I do this to anybody?
Especially myself.
Do people internalize it like that a lot?
Yes.
And blame themselves?
Oh definitely.
It's so difficult because once the disorder takes hold you lose all your self esteem.
You have no more self confidence.
I had no self confidence at all.
I worked very hard to even build my self confidence back up.
It's so difficult and especially if you don't have a spouse.
Research shows that when a family member becomes involved, especially the spouse, in
recovery you not only recover easier and faster but you'll tend to stay recovered.
With support.
With the right kind of help.
And that means people have got to get educated.
If somebody you know, you've got to learn about it.
You've got to expect it to take time.
Show some patience.
And I talk about all that in my book.
A lot of famous people suffer from this.
I'm going to run down a few of them for you when we come back.
Stay close.
If you'd like to be our studio guest while you're in the Los Angeles area, just give
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Roseanne has it.
Lonnie O'Grady she was the oldest daughter on 8 is Enough.
Also agoraphobic and Nicholas Cage also living with agoraphobia.
In fact while on the set of 8 is Enough Lonnie has said that she'd pop value sometimes to calm her panic attacks.
Nicholas Cage at one point would only leave his Malibu beach home to go to work.
So this can be a very crippling disease.
Barbara would you stand up please.
This is Barbara Kersh who's the co-director of a treatment program called Taref.
Hi thank you for being here today.
We were talking about what families can do.
Is it totally psychological and emotional support or is there medication that can help.
Yes it's so eclectic.
There are so many ways to help this.
I'm so proud of everybody that's here.
Aren't they doing a great job.
They really are.
It's a miracle in fact that they were able to control their situations as well as they have done today.
The best thing about this condition Lisa is that it really can be treated and you can overcome it.
And it's kind of a three pronged approach.
It's behavioral where when people finally feel comfortable enough to go out safely and securely and slowly with their field workers face with all new techniques.
New ways to breathe, new ways to act.
Face their fears and slowly overcome them.
And then in addition to that emotionally they start to change.
They start to rid themselves of their old belief systems.
And here you see these perfect looking people and those are their belief systems.
They're always perfect.
They're always concerned with what other people think.
They take care of everybody else.
But at the expense that they keep their own real emotions inside their sadnesses, their anger, even their joy and their spontaneity is always controlled.
And when they start to change that physically and emotionally everything starts to change.
And what is often added with the help of support people and therapists and field workers is the fact that many people that come to us now do take some medication sometimes as needed and sometimes routinely.
Because we know there are specific medications now that can put the lid on the anxiety and the runaway thoughts just enough so they can get over the hump, calm down enough so that they can concentrate.
When you recover are you cured for life?
Well we like to think of cures the fact that we're always going to be people who can get revved up, who have a lot of adrenaline, which may make us, as you quoted these well known people, very productive.
But we can always super react to things.
But we know that when we recover we won't escalate that feeling.
We'll say it's there, I understand it, it's just one part of me and it will never run away with me again.
Great work at Tarot.
Thank you very much and we'll be back.
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You know I was talking with Linda during the break and we said just a few years ago you wouldn't have been able to even be here at all.
You wouldn't have been able to drive.
I wouldn't have been able to walk out the front door at all.
If I would have driven here my mom or someone would have had to have driven me and I probably would have had a pill over my head.
So I would think I was at home but I wasn't.
Look how far she has come.
So if she can do it, you can do it.
Don't keep it a secret.
And Ruth, thank you. Next time we talk to you I hope to see you here in the studio.
Congratulations on your victories.
CJ, Karen, thanks a lot.
Thank you everybody. Bye bye for now.
Thank you.