Dear Dr. Norquist:
I think I am becoming more and more claustrophobic as time goes by. I am conscious of having been very afraid of small and confined spaces since I was young, but I was always able to stay away from places that caused me fear and so it was not a big deal until recently.For the past three years I have always avoided elevators. Now I don’t like going into subways either. I am afraid it is getting worse. I feel this shortness of breath and rising anxiety whenever I have to ride on the train. I’m afraid that one of these times I’ll pull the emergency brake, just so I can get out of the car and be able to catch my breath.
I know this is not good. I don’t know if it will keep getting worse. What should I do, like what kind of exercises could I practice, to make these symptoms become less and less in my life. Thank you.
Dr. Norquist responds:
Fear begets more fear. When you allow fear to take root in your life, it tends to sprout up in an increasing variety of locations, kind of like weeds in a garden, or crabgrass in a lawn. Over time it can start to take over your life – dominating your decisions about where to go, what to do, and how to do it. Staying away from places that caused you fear has allowed your claustrophobia to grow and to spread. The way to reclaim your life is to face your fears directly. You need to spend some time pulling those fears out by the roots (so to speak).
Claustrophobia can be dealt with very effectively in a straightforward manner. It requires unlearning the association your brain has made between anxiety and a particular situation (i.e., elevators and subways). Since relaxation and anxiety are physically incompatible responses, the goal is to associate relaxation with those situations that cause you anxiety. I know this may sound impossible to you currently, but it has been proven to be very effective and many with symptoms much worse than yours have successfully combated their phobias using this approach. It requires learning and practicing relaxation (using abdominal breathing, imagery, meditation or progressive muscle relaxation), and then being in this relaxed state while imagining yourself in situations that produces a mild level of anxiety. When this is mastered, you slowly and progressively move up your predetermined hierarchy of anxiety creating situations. It is important that you move up a notch only when you can maintain a relaxed state while visualizing the anxiety-producing scene. Eventually you can move on to pairing the relaxation state with a real-life hierarchy of situations.
Accomplishing this requires determination, practice, and support and ideally, professional help. There are several good books on anxiety and phobias that can walk you through this process (see E. J. Bourne, The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook). You can do this! Just take it step by step.
Dear Dr. Norquist:
My husband and I adopted our daughter twelve years ago and we very much want to help her to learn respect and at the same time allow her to become her own person. It seems to me that adopted adolescent girls demonstrate an awful lot of hostility towards their adoptive fathers as they search for their own identity. Things have become so difficult that I am wondering if you think it would be the right thing to do to send her to another home temporarily. Do you think it would be helpful to send her away temporarily to emphasize to her our inability to tolerate her sarcasm, and her rejection and hostility, especially towards my husband. Is this step likely to be helpful to her without making her feeling unloved and rejected? Thank you, I’d appreciate your advice.
Dr. Norquist responds:
There is no pat answer here. Each situation is unique. I have to read between your lines to try to understand what your situation is. It appears that there is a lot of hostility going on between your adopted adolescent daughter and your husband. She has already lost her biological parents. I seriously doubt that she could feel anything other than unloved and rejected should you put her in an "out of home placement." With the situation as hostile as it appears to be, this solution appears more to be one of punishment. If your daughter is struggling with feeling good about herself, and establishing her own identity, she needs support and understanding, and perhaps some limit setting more than punishment. I believe our children learn respect through what we model for them. If we treat them, others, and ourselves with respect, our children are likely to do the same (although during adolescence this behavior is not always consistent). You need to try to understand what lies beneath her hostility. This will help you to feel more compassionate. You may need to seek professional help to resolve this situation.
Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, 51 Newark St., Suite 202, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700.
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