A 5x7 Pane of Glass: Coping with a Family Member's Agoraphobia

What would it be like to live in a world where your only means of seeing the outside was a 5x7 foot pane of glass? How would it feel, to know that there are people out there, laughing, playing, crying and yes even dying and you would never be part of it? There are no locks on the doors, no guards posted outside to keep you in, yet you only have that 5x7 foot pane of glass to look through. You never leave and you never experience anything outside of it. This is your prison, your way of life, and your world.

You say it couldn't happen. Not me, I love life too much to be cooped up. You might say that you couldn't imagine not being able to go out for a walk, to see a movie or sit at a restaurant for a nice meal. But it happens. It happens to people all over the world and frankly I believe there are those that will never be known. People who have just disappeared from society, family and friends and now live behind a 5x7 pane of glass, if they are lucky enough to even have that.

It's called Agoraphobia: the fear of leaving one's home/safe place. I have no idea how many people are effected by this Social Panic Disorder but I can tell you that finding help for one who is afflicted by it, is down right impossible. How do I know this? Do I suffer with it? No, not me, but I will explain.

I know of someone that has this disorder to the point of not being able to get her to leave her home for almost three years now. She was a woman that while I was growing up was so vibrant, so full of life and fun. A woman that made sure that if the Ice Capades came to town, she would make sure her kids got to go, a woman that loved to make trips to the Zoo and walk through the animal houses for hours on end. She was a woman that was active in the Church. These are the images I remember from my childhood. You see this woman is my Mother.

They say 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. You can look back and see when things began. I can, and have, looked back and see now the warning signs of this disorder's onset. I can remember the sudden canceling of things she would normally look forward to doing. And I remember the day she ran home from Church in such a panic we all thought she was having a heart attack. And I remember the nights she would cry alone in the dark, thinking she was going crazy. I also remember the relief she felt the day I told her that I had found a name to her problem and that she wasn't insane.

It's bad enough that this can strike anyone at anytime. But what is worse is that to get help for those in the full grip of this disorder is sometimes impossible. I have for the past seven years lived with my mother and have fought to get her any kind of help. From the simplest (or one would think) of getting her set up with a disability, to trying to keep food benefits coming into the household so that she could eat healthy.

As I said earlier, people with Agoraphobia will not leave their home/safe place. They are terrified sometimes by what they believe could happen. Some can't even tell you what they are afraid of, only that they cannot step foot over the threshold. This is where all the problems with government agencies who are supposed to help, fail these people. Each Agency wants medical records.

Medical records? I wonder what part of "They don't leave their homes/safe places". these people do not understand. In a world where medical "house calls" are no longer available, most of these people seldom if ever see a physician. They count on friends and family to bring them food, to run errands and to speak for them in the world outside the 5x7 pane of glass. So what happens to them?

Well in my mother's case, she has one of my brothers and myself. Neither of us married and we both have moved in with her. My brother works a low paying job that takes care of the rent and bills. I have had to give up working to help her with her physical needs due to severe arthritis. We are on food benefits but each time I have to go back and renew I have to go over the same questions with the social worker. I have to again explain what it is she has and that "She doesn't leave the house." And I get the same thing over and over. If I would just bring in her medical records, they might be able to do more.

Blink. Blink. Stare.

What part of "she doesn't leave her house" do these people not understand? There are no medical records.

I guess what upsets me the most is I know that my mother is not the only one that suffers with this disorder. I know there is those that are living in small rooms, with boxes stacked everywhere, possibly in filth. I wonder how many of these older people found dead among collections of old newspaper, the person that no one knew, or thought was crazy, how many actually suffered from Agoraphobia. How many had no one to fight for them, to go out for them, to simply care for them.

It is for my mother and those that are helpless that I continue my fight. That I continue to put my own life on the back burner in order to bring to life just how it must feel to live with only a 5x7 pane of glass between you and the world.