Fear to leave the house can be debilitating and isolating. When you feel like it’s unsafe to leave your home, you may start to feel hopeless, trapped in your own body, and you might start thinking, “What is wrong with me?”
As a mental health therapist, I have worked with tons of people who struggle with agoraphobia, or the fear of being in places where it’s difficult to escape or where they won’t find help. Fortunately, with any anxiety disorder or phobia, there is a way to overcome it! This post is ALL ABOUT fear to leave the house.
What Causes a Fear to Leave the House?
The most common reason someone might have a fear to leave the house is due to agoraphobia. People that struggle with agoraphobia typically feel unsafe in most environments that are not their home (or another familiar place).
Oftentimes, this fear is caused by the experience of panic attacks. If you’ve experienced the terror of a panic attack, you are likely nervous about it happening again. Because panic attacks can seem unpredictable, the idea of having one in public, where you might not be able to escape, could be terrifying.
Even if you’ve never experienced panic attacks, or don’t experience agoraphobia, you may still have a fear to leave the house. This is likely due to a traumatic experience where you learned that leaving the house is unsafe, such as an assault, catching a life-threatening illness, or even watching television that displays the outside world as being unsafe or violent.
How do I get Better?
Overcoming a fear to leave the house is both simple and difficult. It’s simple in the steps that you take, but difficult in the reality that you will feel strong discomfort. Whenever your brain believes that leaving the house is a threat, it will start to send alarm signals to the body, trying to prevent you from walking out the front door. These alarm signals may be both physical, like your heart racing or your legs feeling numb, and cognitive, like an inner voicing telling you that bad things are going to happen. Even if you do push past this and leave the house, your brain will send your body signals to try and return back home.
Instead of flooding your system with anxiety by taking a “just do it” approach, try taking small steps toward your goal. Anxiety is worsened and reduced by experiences that you have. If you try and challenge the anxiety, and then have a terrible experience, your brain will log that away as more “proof” to not leave the home. Similarly, the more you stay home and don’t experience threats, the more your brain will have “proof” that the home is the safest place to be. So compromise by staying within your window of tolerance when challenging your fear. Think Goldilocks, not too intense, not too comfortable, but JUST RIGHT!
Step 1: Resourcing to Feel Safe
The first step when challenging any anxiety or phobia is to create a safety net for yourself. If you are going to push past your comfort zone, you’ll want to trust that you have the tools or resources to pull yourself back.
Find your Helpers
Resourcing doesn’t have to just come from within. People are biologically wired to feel better when with a safe person or safe people. Studies have indicated that holding someone’s hand can reduce the experience of pain, and hugging can increase feel-good chemicals in our bodies.
Even without physical touch, the presence of a safe person when challenging anxiety can help us know that we have help if something, like a panic attack, were to happen.
Lastly, it can be helpful to scan for helpers outside of your circle. If you have the belief that the outside world is dangerous, or people are harmful, look around for proof of the opposite. When someone falls down, typically you will notice people running to help. When someone’s car gets stuck in the mud, you will often see people jumping to that person’s aid. The more that you pay attention to the helpers in the world, the more you will begin to feel safe, even among strangers.
Calm your Body
Anxiety is predominantly physical. Your heart races; you feel tension in your muscles; your stomach hurts. Learning how to effectively calm your body can give you power in knowing that even if you are to feel anxious in public, you can find a way to calm back down. Deep breathing, rhythmic movement, and extreme temperatures are just a few ways to calm anxiety. (Click here to learn 3 Best Ways to Calm Anxiety FAST).
Increase your Personal Power
The more powerful you feel, the less likely your brain will think you’re in danger. Discover what areas you feel less powerful in, whether it’s physical, emotional, or even intellectual, and increase your power there.
To increase your physical power, you may start to lift weights or watch online self defense videos. To increase your intellectual power, you may start to read books or educate yourself on things, such as statistics of crime in the area or on understanding anxiety in the body. Whichever areas you are trying to feel more powerful in, there are a lot of resources to help you get there.
Step 2: Cognitive Challenging
Identifying and challenging thinking errors is a big step in overcoming phobias. A big mistake people make when trying to challenge their fear to leave the house is telling themselves statements like, “Nothing is going to happen,” or “Stop overreacting!”
When a part of you believes that it is in danger, dismissing it can cause it to get even louder. If you’ve tried telling yourself, “Everything will be fine,” you might have noticed a response like, “Well, what if it’s not??”
You might notice better luck if you work WITH the anxious part, instead of against. (Click here to read about How to Manage Emotions Differently).
The reality is, you cannot guarantee that nothing will happen, and this anxious part will always have a rebuttal. Try this CBT skill of going through your worst case scenario. For example, if you leave the house, you MIGHT have a panic attack. If you have a panic attack, you MIGHT not be able to escape or find help. Say you forget all of your coping skills and end up curled up on the sidewalk until the panic attack ends. Maybe you feel embarrassed and return home defeated. Yes, this sounds terrible! AND you will survive. Panic attacks last, on average, 3-5 minutes. It will end and you will return home. But most likely, things will not go this bad. You will likely use your skills, find a place to sit, or even find someone to help. Letting yourself explore worst case scenario can help ease this anxious part.
Another way to work with this anxious part is to challenge the extreme fear statements, such as “I’m dying,” or “I won’t survive this.” Anxiety, like any emotion, is just sensations in the body. When anxiety strikes, remind yourself: “I’m not dying, I’m having anxiety. It will go away eventually.” “I can survive this, I’m just really uncomfortable right now.” “Even if I feel anxious, I know that I am safe.”
Step 3: Face Your Fears
This is a cliché statement, but it is one of the only things that works to overcome a phobia. If you have a fear to leave the house, then the only way to teach your brain that leaving the house isn’t scary, is by leaving the house and having safe experiences.
The best way to do this is by taking baby steps. Start with what feels slightly uncomfortable, but not overwhelming. This can be different for everybody, but some examples are:
Take a walk down the street while practicing deep breathing.
Go to the park with a safe friend.
Meditate on imagining yourself leaving the home.
As you start to feel comfortable with different challenges, then “level up” to the next hardest thing. This is called Exposure Therapy and is very effective in helping to overcome phobia.
One of the most important pieces of exposure therapy is to end the experience with a positive belief. Tell your brain after each experience, “I survived leaving my home.” Even if you had a panic attack, remind yourself, “I survived that experience.” This will teach your brain that it doesn’t need to activate the anxiety every time you leave the house.
Therapy Can Help
If you’d like a guide through the process, or need someone to help you better understand your cognitive errors, beliefs around leaving the house, triggers, and to identify coping skills, try seeing a mental health therapist. Fortunately, teletherapy has shown to be just as effective as in-person therapy, so you won’t need to leave your home to get started.
To find a therapist, go to Psychology Today and search for someone specializing in trauma or anxiety disorders, who also offers telehealth.
Even if you’re not ready for therapy, these three steps can help you finally overcome your fear to leave the house!
Have you ever struggled with a fear to leave the house? What has worked for you? Comment below!
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