| marichiko |
12-08-2006 08:40 PM |
I used to have truely horrid anxiety attacks that would come out of nowhere. I had claustrophobia the way some people have agoraphobia. I couldn't stand to be in a space that was confined like an elevator. I'd walk 20 flights of steps, rather than take an elevator. It got so bad, I couldn't even stand to be in a my house. I'd have to leave and drive up into the mountains, or best of all the plains. I felt soothed by being miles from anywhere just me and the prairie grass. I finally learned some meditation type techniques to deal with my extreme claustrophobia, and I haven't had an attack of that in quite some time. But I have a new fear that interferes with the thing I most love doing and gives me the greatest solace - camping out in the back country alone. I'm fine until it becomes completely dark, and then I become terrified of being alone in the dark. I was never afraid of the dark in the "wilds" before. It really annoys me that I have developed this unreasoning fear. I am safer alone 50 miles up some jeep trail in the desert than I would be at the same hour on the streets of some big city.
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