What It’s Like to Live With Agoraphobia — and How a Selfie Strengthened One Sufferer
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder marked by avoiding places or situations that might trigger intense panic. (Photo: Getty Images)
Brenna Mae threw on a beanie, grabbed her messenger bag, and left her apartment on June 10 to go to Trader Joe’s. While so many people travel to the grocery store everyday, this moment was incredibly special for Mae. So much so, she wanted to take a selfie.
But according to Mae, who is the news and social media director for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a man chastised her for taking the photo, yelling from his vehicle, “Nobody cares that you’re going to the f***ing grocery store.” He couldn’t have known the meaning behind such a moment, nor why Mae was documenting such a simple act.
“I know what you thought you were seeing,” Mae wrote in an open letter she shared on Twitter. “Just a self-absorbed, shallow millennial, documenting a mundane task for no reason. ‘Stupid kid,’ you might have thought, ‘not every little thing has to be documented. Put your phone away and get on with your life.’ But here’s the thing. I also know what you were unable to see: I am agoraphobic.”
According to counselor and psychologist Karla Ivankovich, agoraphobia is a condition where sufferers experience intense fear or anxiety over real or anticipated situations in which they feel they may not be able to escape easily. “In its most severe forms, it can cause people to be completely homebound,” she tells Yahoo Beauty. “People should understand that this condition is intense. It leaves people in a wake of panic, and a supportive community and a good therapist are critical to treatment.”
Ivankovich says roughly 3.2 million Americans (or 2.2 percent of adults between 18 and 54) have agoraphobia, and around one-third are homebound. Mae wrote that she has suffered from agoraphobia for more than three years, which has rendered her almost completely unable to leave her house. She has tried to attend events with her husband, even simply go to the movie theater, but has often felt the need to leave early due to panic attacks.
That day she took the selfie in front of Trader Joe’s, for a fleeting moment, Mae was inspired to try leaving home alone. “Alone in my apartment, I experienced a flash of strange courage,“ she writes. “For once, I didn’t wait around to see if it would stay… I smiled up at the blue sky and the sun, for the first time in years enjoying it on my own. I felt whole. I felt powerful. I felt free.”
Mae’s tweet has garnered thousands of likes and shares, and others have come forward with their own stories, as well. Revelist writer Evette Dionne shared her own personal struggle with agoraphobia, which began at age 12. “Agoraphobia bled all over my life,” she writes in a column for the site. “There were too many people at school, so I stopped going. There were too many people at church, so I stopped going. Eventually, I couldn’t leave the house without feeling panicked.”
Dionne dropped out of high school, earning her GED instead. With the help of a therapist, friends, and family, she eventually enrolled in college, where she graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian. Her last episode of agoraphobia was at age 17. Dionne also completely relates to Mae’s selfie-taking. “Now, almost a decade later, I too take selfies to remind myself of how beautiful I am — and that agoraphobia didn’t beat me,” she writes.
Ivankovich says that although she’s never heard of people with agoraphobia capturing moments of impact with a selfie like Mae, it makes sense. “This is such an intense fear, which is most often debilitating,” she explains. “It’s big that she went outside. While documentation with the selfies is not a part of the ‘fear’ inherent in the disorder, at the same time, it can help remind her of a success in her journey.”
Mae says exactly that in her open letter, which serves as a reminder that everyone has unseen struggles and maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge as bystanders. A mundane moment can be deeply powerful.
“You and I were the sole witnesses of a moment 3+ years in the making,” she writes to the stranger who criticized her. “All I wanted was one photo — not even from a flattering angle, not even well-composed. Just one photo to prove I did it, to look at when I’m low again, to remind myself that it’s possible to defeat the demons and win…When you drove by, yes, I was a woman standing outside a Trader Joe’s acting like my shopping troop was important enough to document. Because it was.”
Let’s keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
