Answers to 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Will it Take to Recover from Agoraphobia?

Do you ever worry about the pace of your recovery from agoraphobia? Do you ever say to yourself: "At this rate, it could take forever to get my life back?"

When first trying to overcome anxiety and irrational fear it can feel like maximum efforts lead to only minimal results. If you feel this way, you are in good company.

I would be embarrassed to tell you how it took before I could walk to the end of my driveway and get the mail without feeling like I was literally
falling apart from the fear. I remember thinking to myself: "If it takes me this long to make ttwenty yards of progress, I will be 100 years old
before I am able to return to school or work."

This sort of thinking is absolutely demoralizing when you are working hard to overcome a condition as challenging as agoraphobia. In fact, it can make you feel like giving up. But here is some encouragement from a recovered agoraphobic - don't let your thinking be the enemy and weigh you down mmentally during recovery. Recovery is hard enough as it is.

Here are 5 Laws of Recovery from Agoraphobia to help you avoid being derailed by discouraging thoughts, understand the typical course of recovery, and stay on the most direct path to freedom from anxiety and fear. Each represents a psychological or biological truth that can work powerfully in your favor.

1. The Law of Time

Many people stay trapped with agoraphobia because they give up on a recovery technique if they do not see results in a few days. This is a big
mistake. Recovery from agoraphobia takes time, and knowing how much time recovery can take will help you have patience.

Studies show it takes an average of 12-16 weeks to start seeing progress if you follow a cognitive- behavioral treatment program. If you start a recovery program and don't see results right away,
don't worry. Just as it took some time for you to learn the behaviors and thinking habits of an agoraphobic, it can take some time to unlearn
them.

2. The Law of Momentum

Sir Isaac Newton said "A body in motion tends to stay in motion" and "a body at rest tends to stay at rest." This law of momentum applies to recovery from agoraphobia.

You can expect to feel the most panicky, expend the most effort, see the least progress when you initially confront fear. But the more you
successfully confront fear, the more you will gain momentum toward recovery as your confidence to enter feared situations generalizes. As
psychologist Fredric Neuman puts it: "The first few steps are as hard as the last hundred miles." (from Rising Above Fear)

It might take the same effort to go out the front door and walk twenty yards to the mailbox that it will take to drive twenty miles during a later
stage in recovery. But don't be discouraged by the initial pace of your progress. Instead, focus on the direction. Just keep up your efforts and trust the law of momentum to take over at some point and speed up your recovery.

3. The Law of Consistency

One of my mentors, Alex Mandossian said: "Ordinary things, if done consistently, can lead to extraordinary results." This is true for your
recovery from agoraphobia. Don't expect recovery to be overnight or happen as a result of one big, heroic effort. Instead, recovery is achieved by faithfully doing a lot of little things day after day - conditioning yourself to relax, exposing yourself to your fears, and replacing negative and irrational thoughts on a daily basis.

4. The Law of Inconsistency

While a successful recovery effort is consistent, progress is not. You can expect to have some ups and downs during recovery. If you are like the
rest us, you can expect to have some bad days. You can expect to have panic attacks in places and situations in which you have learned to feel safe. But as long as you allow yourself to be human and take the bad days with the good, they will just become part of the journey and won't set you back in your recovery.

5. The Law of "Aftershocks."

"Aftershocks," as I call them, are a normal part of recovery from agoraphobia. Almost everyone has them. Expect to experience an occasional panic attack, even after you have returned to a normal
life. Having an occasional panic attack months or even years after recovery does not mean you will develop agoraphobia again.

Just as aftershocks are a sign that an earthquake has ended, late panic attacks are a sign that agoraphobia has ended. Think about it, when panic attacks come as an unexpected surprise it means that anxiety and fear are no longer part of your daily life.

As long as you can see late panic attacks for what they are, and don't interpret them as major catastrophes, they will remain isolated incidents
and will become even fewer and far between.

Recovering from agoraphobia is largely a matter of changing the way you think. If you let these 5 Laws shape your thinking, they will keep you on course toward recovery. They will help you know what to expect along the way, and help you stay motivated and hopeful that there is not only light at the end of the tunnel but a brand new life.