The following is a blog written by an anonymous contributor who has experienced a mental health condition called Agoraphobia with Panic Attacks for their entire adult life. What many of us are experiencing with COVID-19 quarantines and self-isolation could be the normal way of life for someone with this condition. Read a little about this experience and how Teletherapy is now providing an opportunity that wasn’t readily available before.

“I have been self-quarantining for the past 25 years. Not because of COVID-19, obviously, but because I have Agoraphobia with Panic Attacks. When quarantine became normalized with the pandemic, I immediately felt like I wasn’t alone. Suddenly, what had been my normal for the past 25 years became most everyone else’s normal too. Like me, they didn’t have a choice.

Some people might think that mental illness is a choice, or that you can just “snap out of it”. Well, I am here to tell you that this misnomer simply isn’t true. If I could snap out of this, I wouldn’t have missed so many milestones of a life that has now passed me by. While I have found a way to make this work, it certainly isn’t by choice. Like the government-imposed quarantines of late, my deeply entrenched anxiety about being anywhere but my home has been forced upon me. I have yet to fully understand why my mind and body have done this to me, but I am gradually beginning to understand more about my condition.

For years and years, I wasn’t able to see a Therapist. I wasn’t able to leave my home and therefore, I couldn’t physically get to a Therapist’s office. I had tried, but those efforts left me feeling physically drained for weeks. The effort and ensuing Panic Attacks of leaving the house would take everything from me. Now, ironically, with the pandemic, it seems the world is opening up to me. The virtual life has cracked wide open and what was once only available to those who could leave their homes is available to those who can’t leave their homes. Through this awakening, I found MySpectrum Counseling & Coaching’s Teletherapy. Now, I meet with my Therapist on a regular basis from my home and I can finally… finally, after 25 years start this path of connection, and maybe even healing. I am not sure that I will ever be able to leave my home for any significant amount of time, but at least now I have hope.”

If you would like to schedule a Teletherapy appointment with a Therapist at MySpectrum, please give us a call at 804-924-2236, or fill out the Get Started Form here.