Recluse Of Fear. How To Deal With Bouts Of Claustrophobia? - Self-development

In the last six months, I started having bouts of claustrophobia. It began with the fact that I was stuck in a work toilet. Then this state of panic was repeated periodically. Now on a closed staircase, then in the bath. So scary that it comes to hysteria. Why is this with me? Is it overstrain at work? How to deal with this?

Marina, 55 years old

This is anything but overstrain at work. We can always and must answer the question: why did this symptom arise, the fear of precisely this content, and not something else - for example, a headache or insomnia?

It is necessary to understand the very essence of the violation, to understand what the subconscious mind is trying to express through it in its own language, and to give an adequate answer - to change something in their feelings, assessments, life situation, behavior, character. Only in this case it will be possible to do without "antidepressants". Of course, without knowing your personal history, you cannot say for sure about the reasons for what is happening. I will only make a few assumptions.

Claustrophobia - the fear of being in a closed, closed room - indicates some kind of forced restriction in your life or soul, some kind of prohibition that is unpleasant, offensive, offensive to you, or conflicts with your rules, principles, imposed by moral principles. Perhaps someone is overly suppressing you, dominating, dominating you, and this is traumatic, perhaps you yourself are being overly demanding of yourself in something, suppressing an urgent need or a sincere feeling. One way or another, your life situation, personal life or character trait fetters you, deprives you of freedom, restricts you like a confined space, a toilet room or an elevator. All this, as a rule, goes back to childhood and is associated with mental trauma received under circumstances when you, as a child, were helpless,insulted or humiliated and could neither "get out" of their feelings, nor overcome the offender.

So, first of all, look around - does something in the reality around you evoke feelings similar to those that arise in a closed room? Does someone or something restrict your freedom, including yourself, struggling with yourself and depriving yourself of alternatives and choices? Most likely, at first you will answer categorically - "no", and this is quite natural, because if your being "locked" was realized by you, then there would be no symptom - you would be looking for an opportunity to change something, and would not suffer from fear. Fear, anxiety are always caused by a lack of necessary information or, as psychoanalysis shows, by the restraint of some desire that turned out to be in conflict with the moral principles of a given person and therefore became unacceptable for him without losing its strength and significance. As I said, this is just a general outline,describing the disorder.