Hello everybody, welcome back to the Metaphobia Insights podcast. Today is going to be a short
episode. Apologies for the microphone too, I'm driving at the moment so I figured I'd
just make a podcast off the top of my head to keep things rolling. Today I wanted to
talk about how I started to deal with leaving my house when or once my metaphobia got really
bad. So I sort of developed agoraphobia to a degree. I don't know if I had full blown
agoraphobia because I wasn't necessarily always locked in my house. Like there were a lot
of days where I couldn't really go anywhere. Like most days I would say for like at least
two, three months, I really couldn't go far at all. Like I could go get the mail and I
might be able to like, you know, walk around the yard for a little bit. But the longer
I spent outside the more panic I would sort of feel. And I didn't like that. So my brain
told me that the best option and the best choice I could make was to stay inside, play
video games all day, do nothing and just sort of freak out. And honestly, sometimes those
sort of periods in our life are kind of necessary. Sometimes we do need a, you know, bedrock.
Sometimes we need to do that for a little bit. Sometimes we need to do that for a couple
of days, a couple of weeks, maybe even a month or two. It starts to get a little, you know,
a little worse the longer you do it. But sometimes it is a necessary thing for you to sort of
rejuvenate the hope and the dedication. You know, it definitely doesn't make you feel
better, at least from my experience, but it does sort of give me, you know, enough strength
to sort of push forward a little more. And usually the hardest times that I have and
that I managed to push through are the times I make the most progress. So basically, the
what happened is that, yeah, I got to the stage where I couldn't really leave the house.
Like I had a shop in my little small town. It was about a two minute drive. It's very
hard to go there. And I also have this, I live on a street where the road's about 500
meters long. So it's not a very long walk to get to the end of that road. But that's
where I started. You know, I sort of woke up one day and I sort of was so pissed off
with myself for letting myself just give up everything, you know. And I decided that day
I was going to walk to the end of that road. You know, I want to walk to the end of this
road. I want to make it. I want to do something. And I think I can do this. Really, I didn't
think I could do it. I had no idea. But I did it anyway. And you know what happened?
I had a panic attack. And I came straight home. And it sort of defeated me. But for
some reason, it gave me enough drive to try again, because it shit me so much that I wasn't
able to walk to the end of the road. I was like, damn, why can't I walk to the end of
the road? Come on. Like, I've done this. I drive down this road. I've driven down. I
live here. I've done this every day of my life. What the hell? You know? So I did it
again the next day. And I had another panic attack. But the panic attack I had the next
day was not as intense. It was still definitely bad. So I thought to myself, you know what?
I'll do it again. And then I didn't have a panic attack that time. On this short little
couple minute walk, mind you, not a very big one. I didn't have a panic attack that third
day I tried. But then I tried again, I'd had another panic attack. It was sort of a fluctuation
of things. But each time that I did that walk, each day that I did that, I felt a little
less scared of the consequences of that. And there shouldn't be consequences of going on
a walk, obviously. But anxiety tells me different. It tells me it's scary. It tells me I shouldn't
do that. I need to stay home and be safe and secure and certain of what's going to happen.
You can't be certain. Not on something like that. You can never be 100% certain. And that's
why it's scary. And I really was uncertain. I was very uncertain. But I did it anyway,
you know? As hard as it is to sort of take that first step and do these baby steps, it
is probably arguably the most important part of all of it is these tiny steps. And each
time I did this walk, it was a really small step. I can't even exaggerate how small this
step was. But it was a step, regardless. And I sort of did that for a while. There was
a couple months there, whereas maybe two months where I did that every day. And there were
some days that I wouldn't be able to do it really that well or wouldn't be able to do
it all. But I still did it. It would fluctuate. Anxiety, healing from this sort of thing is
not a straight line. It goes up and down, as everything else does in life. But I kept
doing it regardless. And then I got to the point where I sort of got bored of that. You
know, I thought, you know, I need a bit more of a challenge. This is easy. You know? So
I started driving down the street, down to my little shop that I used to like to go to.
And holy shit, did that cause me some panic attacks. That two minute drive that it took
was shorter than the walk. But my God, did it feel like it took half an hour when I got
out of that shop and I didn't buy my groceries because I was freaking out and I was too scared
of waiting in line and it took too long and the cashier wasn't hurrying up and then everything
was going wrong. And I felt like, you know, breathe, calm down. I eventually came to the
point where I did that every day. You know, and there were a lot of times where I couldn't
go into the shop or I dropped my groceries halfway through waiting. Or I, you know, I
walked to the door and then touched the door handle and went, no, and walked back to my
car. But I had to keep trying. And I got to the point where I realized it's going to sound
really silly. Probably going to think I'm a bit stupid. I am. I realized that when something
like this would happen in the day and I couldn't do it, like going to the shop, if I couldn't
do it earlier in the day, I realized that I could try again in the same day. I didn't
have to wait till the next day to do it. And that was sort of the biggest turning point
of my journey. Mind you, this all happened over the period of about six months to this
point here. So maybe not six months, maybe like four months. Yeah, four months. Sorry,
four months. I realized I could try again, as I said. And when I realized that my progression
that I made became doubled, tripled even. I started driving a little further. And then
one night, a couple of weeks after I figured out I could try again, the same day, a couple
of hours later, five minutes later, whatever, I drove to McDonald's. And this is probably
going to sound a bit weird, but this McDonald's was about half an hour away. So I had not
driven anything like that in months and months. The thought of that actually terrified me.
But I just grabbed the keys. It was like two o'clock in the morning. I was wide awake,
so I wasn't doing anything dangerous or anything. But I just, yeah, I got in the car and I drove.
I didn't tell anyone what I was doing because I didn't want anyone to be disappointed in
me if I couldn't do it. But I did it. And the I didn't even really feel anxious because
I was so proud of myself for doing something that I didn't think I was ever going to be
able to do again. I really believed that I was never going to be able to do that. But
I did. And I was, I was, for lack of a better word, fucking over the moon. You know, like
the things that we are capable of are limitless. We are literally capable of overcoming pretty
much anything. Our brains are so powerful, our bodies can handle a lot more than we give
them credit for. And I know that this phobia in particular is really exhausting as of a
lot of like all of them are, you know, any mental limitless is, but this is so exhausting.
And the dark place that this phobia brings you to is something that I wouldn't wish upon
anyone. You know, I know how lonely it gets. I know how scary like just being like wrapped
in just complete fear from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep is such
a scary thing. And I'm not going to lie. I'm in a similar place as I was to when I was,
you know, living back then, you know, four years ago, I'm not doing the best with my
metophobia and sort of came back sort of have some unresolved things with my anxiety. I've
been in therapy a lot recently. I've been trying to build myself to do a better me.
You know, I've had a lot of things that I regret in my lifetime. I was addicted to drugs
for a long time, or not anything heavy, but you know, I smoked a lot of weed, had a lot
of alcohol, whatever. I wasn't happy with that. And I wasn't happy with the person I
was. I was a really awful person of beer. And I was just really mean. I was really rude.
I ruined a lot of friendships and relationships because my actions and I didn't like that.
So I sort of decided that I had to change. And now I've gotten myself into therapy. I'm
working on that. And it sort of brought up a lot of things that I sort of forgot about
a lot of emotions that I suppressed for a long time. So it's brought me back to a place
where my metophobia wasn't the cause of the reason I'm feeling like this. It's a symptom.
And now it's sort of become my driving focus again, sort of focusing on the metophobia
and trying to get that out of the way. So I can continue my journey on being a better
me. You know, I want to grow as much as I can and be the best version of myself I can
be. And I figured now was the best time to start a podcast for the reason that I think
growing alongside anyone that wants to listen and giving my advice along the way and sharing
my setbacks, my failures, my coping strategies, my good times, you know, any advice, anything.
I feel like this is the best time to do so. So I hope to anyone that is listening, that
you have a good day, that you have a good week, that your metophobia doesn't play up
today and you get through whatever you need to do with ease. And I just want you to know
that if you're in a position where you can't move your house or you find it hard to do
so that it does get better. And as long as you are trying, you are doing the things that
you need to do, even if you're going on a very small walk, please just keep trying.
Look at the anxiety from a new perspective. Try not to take it so seriously. And most
of all, just be nice to yourself and be patient. You know, we all have probably talked so bad
to ourselves. I know I have said some horrendous things to myself and I know it sounds silly.
Like why would it matter what you say to yourself? Who cares? But like it really does impact
how you will go moving forward. So please above anything, if you are going to listen
to anything I said, please just be nice to yourself. I promise you like if you practice
that enough, if you pull yourself up when you're being mean to yourself and blaming
yourself for everything and just being an awful person to you in your mind. Like I promise
as long as you keep trying to do that, you keep going on with the kindness, you will
get to a point that is better than where you are. I don't quite know what that point is
because I'm currently working on this as well. But I just thought I'd share these things
from my experience, my life and hopefully a bit of advice for anyone out there that
needs it. As per usual, you can contact me on any socials at a link below if I can figure
out how to link them. And I hope to have more episodes out soon. So thank you for listening
guys and I hope you have a good day. See you.