By Michael Christie January 30
Michael Christie is the author of the novel "If I Fall, If I Die."
Agoraphobia, from the Greek
agora for marketplace, today afflicts
3.2 million adult Americans, a number no doubt underestimated because
agoraphobics are notoriously hard to count. Originally conceived as the fear of wide-open spaces, the condition once conjured Munch’s (an
agoraphobic himself) “The Scream”: a weakened individual cowering in the frenetic modern city. This definition has since mutated. Today it’s understood as the end game of panic anxiety disorder, the fear of one’s own fear response — being driven mad by the inescapable thunder of a panic attack. Because of this fear,
agoraphobics map out safe zones (their homes, usually) and retreat into private worlds, which can become prisons.
Darwin had it. Dido has it. Emily Dickinson and Kim Bassinger, too. It’s been called
“Greta Garbo Syndrome” after the actress who holed up in her New York apartment for almost 50 years with only her famous declaration “I just want to be alone” to guard her door.
Lately I’ve been noticing how much harder it is to get people I know to leave their neighborhoods. To put down their phones. To read or watch or listen to things they
don’t already know they’ll enjoy. It’s not just my sphere; Americans at large are
more isolated than ever, and more anxious, across many disparate groups:
children,
soldiers,
college students,
women. We increasingly
fear things we have no reasonable cause to fear. While the number of clinically diagnosable
agoraphobics hasn’t increased, something that reeks of agoraphobia
seems to be presenting itself all around me.
I know what it looks like. My mother’s agoraphobia began in her early 20s. It started after a panic attack while she was driving. First she stopped using highways; then she avoided left turns. After that came a gradual narrowing. Friends and hobbies that required outward ventures were scuttled. Her interests migrated indoors: reading, art, crafts, cooking. By the time I was about five, she didn’t leave our house if she could help it. At school, I’d hear about “vacations” from my classmates and had trouble parsing the idea. Forget airplanes or road trips — my mother couldn’t leave our neighborhood without risking seismic panic.
She died five years ago, but I
see my mother in everyone lately. On Instagram, my friends’
gazes have turned inward: to their food, their dwellings, themselves. And who can blame them? Anxiety and fear are the defining emotions of this historical moment, whipping over the globe faster and freer than wind or electronic money. A recent study confirms that the actual dangerousness of our lives is decreasing, but our fear of
crime is steadily rising. It’s the Islamic State, Ebola, illegal immigrants, extreme weather events, IEDs, toxins, and terror. It courses through our networks and vaults from our screens to infect our defenseless heads. How afraid
ought one be of bad neighborhoods or bee-slaughtering pesticides or Russian dirty bombs or slushy ice caps? Who could ever really hope to answer that question?
Reasonable concern is a scarce commodity in our hyperventilated Internet world. Anyone who’s stayed up watching the Dopplerized formation of another mega-
superstorm that fizzled by morning, or who’s begun looking up a minor medical symptom and found themselves self-diagnosing a rare cancer after just 10 minutes of clicking knows what I mean. And unlike true
agoraphobics, we enjoy the fear. Its seduction keeps us clicking and reading and watching. Americans express widespread fear of natural disasters, but few households
actually have emergency kits.
What effect does this rising cultural fear bath have? We over-anticipate. Put on our headphones and close our personal borders, lest a stranger engage us in any way. We clutch our phones (which might be
increasing our anxiety), read books we’re sure we’ll like, listen to voices with which we’re sure to agree, and sink into isolation as real as my mother’s, even if the root of it is different. Each day we wake up with the realm of safety whittled a little smaller, the borders of our own private domains drawn a little tighter. Outside is disease, bombs, inequality, crime,
risk. Inside
is warmth, screens, comfort, Amazon packages, plenty, health,
safety.
Before her death, through therapy and small acts of daily bravery, my mother was able to hold a job and to drive again. After trips to the grocery store, she would relate enthusiastic stories about all the marvelous people and things she’d encountered. And I think we could all learn a little from her. No matter how isolated and fearful we become, we must stretch our boundaries. We must continue to value bravery and good faith, to aspire to be a
people who would rather assume the
essentially safety of the world and risk getting hurt, than to live our lives in cowering safety. We don’t have agoraphobia; we should stop acting like we do
For the last 23-years, just knowing I'm within several miles of all the best of everything this city has to offer -- from grocery stores to restaurants to shopping malls -- should the need EVER arise is reassuring. Being but 6 miles from the largest medical center in the world where I did my TBI rehab at TIRR (Gabby Giffords) is also very cathartic. Thus, unless absolutely necessary, since I also work from home, except for stepping outside the condo door to check the mail and walking ~50 yards about 5AM every other week to the laundry room in the complex, I've long embraced agoraphobia as being a resolute curmudgeon....more
I would also add that the irony is that for the true agoraphobe, they are able to be connected to the world in a greater way than ever before. They can find support and have interactions with people instead of just stuck locked in their house! How lovely is that? Sure it may not be face to face interaction but that doesn't mean it has no value. I do seem to recall the Lord Grantham was concerned about the impact of the wireless on family time on Downton Abbey. Its just change, it happens all the time....more
I gave up my car two years ago due to poor eyesight. Now I ride the bus. Occasionally I will sit by someone who starts a conversation or meet someone I've ridden the bus with before. That helps with not feeling so isolated from other people.
When winter comes, I'm TRAPPED. Living in upper New England when it snows or becomes icy, even bus riding to do shopping is out. I don't dare risk falling. So I resort to the phone, Skype with family in other cities/states, shop through Amazon a lot, and, in general long desperately for good weather and other voices than my limited sphere....more
Did she have many conversations along the way? Conversations are the threads of social fabric. Some conversations have migrated to the Internet, but others have been lost, probably forever....more
Are we really more fearful than we were, let's say, during the Cold War? Were people more likely to travel outside their neighborhoods? I think many people stay in their homes or neighborhoods because it's more convenient and comfortable these days.
Seriously though-- I'm more likely to slip on my icy back steps and crack my head than I am to be killed by an emissary of the "religion of peace" or to contract Ebola.
Live life, don't fear it.
You're comparing illegal immigrants to ISIS and Ebola? That's pretty hateful....more
Toffler, in Future Shock, pointed out that fast-paced change of technology and culture produces anxiety. We've certainly got that, and a weak economy for most workers to boot.
I think the pervasiveness of media and political fear mongering is a big part of it. One party (Republicans) and their media allies are masters of this game-sharia law, mosques, gay marriage, child refugees, ebola, ISIS beheadings, are just a few of their recent themes.
Finally, I think for many of us middle age is the best antidote to anxiety. We've seen enough threats grow and recede in our consciousness that we can keep the new ones in perspective. No matter how bad things are today we don't fear nuclear extinction as we did in my youth.
Good to hear your mother made the choice to overcome her fears....more