I have a weird variation of agoraphobia that's specific to grocery stores, and have gradually come to steel myself up before a trip into the place. I used to seize up pretty badly and completely refuse to walk into a store, opting instead to either have my groceries delivered or have friends go in for me as long as I gave them money to go in. After college, when the world made it all-too clear that a degree in Fine Art was worth absolutely nothing when it came to practical matters and I was forced to move out of Chicago and back to Ohio, I lost the ability to be able to avoid the grocery store. I've been better about the fear more recently. While I had definitely heard of the five minute phobia cure while I was spending 5% again of my money sending people to get my groceries, I had never needed to find anything about it until, upon moving back to Ohio, I found myself needing to go to the grocery store when I needed milk.
The cure, developed by a therapist in the quick-fix eighties, is a series of acupressure and self-affirmation cues that can be found just as soon as you search for it. I have used it occasionally, but have needed it less and less in recent months.
Either the treatment has been effective for me, or I'm really not all that afraid of grocery stores when I lack the convenience of having them delivered. I no longer experience panic attacks the moment that those doors in front of the Kroger slide open, nor bother every worker there at each and every turn to tell me in which aisle I can find garbage bags, and I must say that I'm grateful to either the necessity or the treatment for being able to spare those poor, poor people from my peculiarities.
The Five Minute Phobia cure can be found online, usually through MENSA articles, as only the very smart, very resourceful, or very neurotic tend to be able to find shortcuts to solutions that most normal people would just as soon let slide.
Check out this review of the best fast phobia cure that I've found.
No comments:
Post a Comment