Tuesday, April 17, 2012

What is normal to others...

All these hospital and retirement home visits, shopping trips, restaurants, etc. have shown me that my agoraphobia is at bay.

A couple of times I've looked around at a crowd and marveled that I wasn't feeling even a twinge in situations that once would have sent me tight-lipped to the outdoors.

I still don't totally trust it -- but it's a virtuous cycle; the more relaxed I am, the more relaxed I get.

I'm still somewhat of a socially awkward penguin, especially for a guy my age. I'm just not in the practice of dealing with lots of people, except in my store, of course, but that's my territory. And internally, I think it must still be difficult based on how tired I get.

But how wonderful that I can finally enjoy a restaurant or other social areas -- at a time when I can more finally afford restaurants and trips and other such areas.

**********

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear it, Dunc. Keep up the good work.

H. Bruce Miller said...

Glad you're doing so well. Sometimes agoraphobia goes away on its own. My mother had it really bad -- actually didn't leave the house for a year at one point. It gradually faded away. Of course none of us back then knew to call it "agoraphobia."