Agoraphobia and NEWSROOM

The show NEWSROOM had the first realistic depiction of a panic attack I've ever seen on T.V. or in the movies, last night. One of the characters rushes out of a meeting and runs up to the roof to hide and recover. Her roommates friends have absconded with all her Xanax.

Anyway, I thought it was interestingly handled, as a response to stress that can be dealt with properly. That the character is an effective worker, who occasionally has a problem.

And the Xanax.

I always carry a pill with me, just in case. I haven't had to resort to it very often. I suspect, actually, I don't resort to the pills often enough. I'm conscious that it could become an issue.

But just having them available has been a huge help. It seems to short-circuit the beginnings of the problem to know that I have a solution to the problem. A placebo effect without even taking the placebo.

I've mentioned before I suffered from depression in my 20's. It's been about 35 years since I went off the major medication.

But there was one holdover, and that was my agoraphobia. I fought through it. Just going into Pegasus Books the first time and meeting the owner was a real challenge. Going to writer's group. Both activities have led to both a personal life (I met Linda at writer's group) and my working life (hired to work at Pegasus and 4 years later, buying the place.)

Here's the thing I'll always remember though. I just thought I was generally crazy until:

I read an article.

Yes, in all my voluminous and almost addictive reading, I stumbled across an article about agoraphobia and realized what I had. An, 'ah hah!' moment. This was at least 10 years after I suffered my first panic attack.

Neither of the shrinks who treated me for depression ever diagnosed it: I'm sure it was all tangled up in my other neuroses...heh.

Just knowing what it was, was a huge huge relief. I read up on the condition, and started treating myself. Not aggressively, by any means. But slowly, very very slowly, I attempted more and more social interaction, venturing out of my safe zone ONLY when I felt I wouldn't have a panic attack.

The theory being, the more marketplace interactions I had without a panic attack the more credit I accrued in my emotional bank.

But I had a safe platform from which to venture. I owned my own store, I had a very supportive wife and family. I did it extremely slowly -- you might even say, over a 20 to 30 year period of saying NO to most things, and occasionally saying YES.

It was about a decade ago, that I asked my general practitioner about Xanax, which I had read was a "magic" pill for the condition. I was all ready to argue that "I didn't care what caused it" and "I didn't want to see a shrink" and so on, but he readily agreed.

It's been a huge help, and I'm almost at a stage of believing that the actual phobia is gone -- that what I've got is just your everyday social anxiety, which Xanax smooths over.

My latest Doctor actually did start to ask about "what caused it" and I rather harshly said, "It doesn't matter -- it has to do with depression and drugs from 30 years ago, and I've been all through that -- the pills WORK and that's that." She, maybe a little reluctantly, let it drop. I suspect, at this point in my life, I probably know more about the condition than she does...That it's situational, and that I don't need Freudian analysis to figure out what's going on.

Anyway, it was nice to see a non-pejorative, non-judgmental depiction of the condition.


Now, about NEWSROOM.

It's red meat for liberals. I cheer every scene.

The first episode was great, the second episode was cringe-worthingly bad, and the third episode was pretty good. I don't much like the flibbertigibbet female characters in their relations to the men.

Other than that, I'm eating it up.