Anxiety from Being Away from Home (and how to deal with it)

In this brief guide, we will look at anxiety from being away from home and how to deal with it.

Anxiety from Being Away from Home

Anxiety from being away from home is also known as Agoraphobia, and in some cases, it can refer to travel anxiety as well, and in this condition, the person may feel extreme dread at just the thought of going away from their home and doing things outside of their safe space.

Agoraphobia is a deteriorating and debilitating condition that almost always progresses when it is left untreated, and it often gets to a point that the person is simply not able to travel or get out even for the smallest things, like picking up a delivery or saying hi to someone on their front porch.

Anxiety from being away from home is often something that follows a panic attack outside and because of this, the person starts to feel a sense of dread at just the mere thought of getting out of their house because they feel that they will not be able to get away if they needed to.

This feeling of not being able to get back to their comfortable and safe space, that is, their home, is what leads to anxiety from being away from home in people.

Agoraphobia is actually a condition that should not be limited to just being anxiety from being away from home, as this is the wrong definition, and in reality, Agoraphobia is more a fear of not being able to escape a difficult situation and getting back to one’s home.

This is the reason that someone with agoraphobia might stop leaving their home altogether, and they may not be able to deal with even the thought of getting out.

Some people may also experience anxiety from being away from home when they have to move out of their home for work or study, and naturally, this is something that needs immediate attention given how important it is for people to move out for better prospects these days.

People who experience anxiety from being away from home when they are meant to move out often feel this way because of a crushing sense of new responsibilities and being held completely accountable for their actions after having shared their burdens for so long.

Then there are also those who experience anxiety from being away from home because they are experiencing travel anxiety, which refers to the fear of something going wrong during the time the person is travelling, and this often makes travel extremely difficult for people.

The reason for this kind of anxiety from being away from home is also somewhat similar to agoraphobia, that is, the person may be afraid of something going wrong when they are travelling and not being able to get to safety or maintain their well-being.

Regardless of which kind of anxiety from being away from home the person is experiencing, the potential lack of control is usually what drives it, and therefore there must be ways to fix that before other aspects of the problem can be remedied.

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Anxiety Symptoms

Anxiety symptoms are the first thing you need to understand when you are trying to figure out what anxiety from being away from home means, as the symptoms of anxiety usually stay the same across the various types of situations in which the person may experience them.

Here are the most commonly seen symptoms of anxiety according to the International Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders (ICD 10):

“As in other anxiety disorders, the dominant symptoms vary from person to person, but the sudden onset of palpitations, chest pain, choking sensations, dizziness, and feelings of unreality (depersonalization or derealization) are common.”

“There is also, almost invariably, a secondary fear of dying, losing control, or going mad. Individual attacks usually last for minutes only, though sometimes longer; their frequency and the course of the disorder are both rather variable.”

Based on this description, as well as that across the various anxiety disorders, anxiety symptoms may be considered to be the following:

• Sudden overwhelming fear
• Palpitations
• Chest pain
• Nausea
• Sweating
• Fear of dying
• Numbness or tingling in the limbs or entire body
• Chills or hot flushes
• Trembling
• Shortness of breath. If you need a CPAP mask to improve your breathing during anxiety attacks, try these Best CPAP Mask for Anxiety.
• Sense of choking
• Dizziness
• A feeling of being detached from the world (de-realization)
• Irritability or explosive anger
• Muscle tension
• Sleep disturbances
• Restlessness
• Fatigue
• Difficulty concentrating
• Personality changes, such as becoming less social

Social Phobia or Agoraphobia?

The difference between social phobia and agoraphobia is very simple, because while in agoraphobia there may be a fear of just about everything in the outside world and a fear of not being able to get away, in social phobia the fear may be limited to being around other people and interacting with them in a way that brings attention to the person.

The ICD Definitions of Social Phobia and Agoraphobia make the differences between the two very simple and easy to understand. These are given below:

Agoraphobia is a specific disorder in the ICD that has very specific guidelines, which are as follow:

“It is now taken to include fears not only of open spaces but also of related aspects such as the presence of crowds and the difficulty of immediate easy escape to a safe place (usually home). The term, therefore, refers to an interrelated and often overlapping cluster of phobias embracing fears of leaving home: fear of entering shops, crowds, and public places, or of travelling alone in trains, buses, or planes. 

Although the severity of the anxiety and the extent of avoidance behaviour is variable, this is the most incapacitating of the phobic disorders and some sufferers become completely housebound; many are terrified by the thought of collapsing and being left helpless in public. The lack of an immediately available exit is one of the key features of many of these agoraphobic situations. 

Most sufferers are women and the onset is usually early in adult life. Depressive and obsessional symptoms and social phobias may also be present but do not dominate the clinical picture. In the absence of effective treatment, agoraphobia often becomes chronic, though usually fluctuating.”

The guidelines and description of social phobia, on the other hand, is as follows:

“Social phobias often start in adolescence and are centred around a fear of scrutiny by other people in comparatively small groups (as opposed to crowds), usually leading to avoidance of social situations. 

Unlike most other phobias, social phobias are equally common in men and women. They may be discrete (i.e. restricted to eating in public, to public speaking, or to encounters with the opposite sex) or diffuse, involving almost all social situations outside the family circle.

A fear of vomiting in public may be important. A direct eye-to eye confrontation may be particularly stressful in some cultures. Social phobias are usually associated with low self-esteem and fear of criticism. 

They may present as a complaint of blushing, hand tremor, nausea, or urgency of micturition, the individual sometimes being convinced that one of these secondary manifestations of anxiety is the primary problem; symptoms may progress to panic attacks. Avoidance is often marked, and in extreme cases may result in almost complete social isolation.”

Coping with Anxiety from Being Away from Home

If you are experiencing anxiety from being away from home, you most certainly need to see a professional about it, and this is something that can be managed with both therapy and anxiety medication.

If you are not in favour of taking medication or are apprehensive about it, you can always discuss it with your psychiatrist and see if there are psychotherapeutic interventions that are specifically helpful in cases similar to yours.

In most cases of anxiety, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Behavior Therapy are particularly useful and many people benefit from these Interventions.

Other than professional methods, there are some things you can do as well, to make sure that you are able to cope with your anxiety from being away from home. These are:

• Relaxation Exercises
• Deep Breathing when outside
• Taking small steps towards the outside world
• Meditation. Check the list of helpful meditation apps that have reduced anxiety in people.
• Dealing with the fear of being away from home rather than avoiding
• Trying to get help from the social system like friend or family. In families, dealing with anxiety can be difficult, check out the best anxiety books for parents and teens.
• Taking your time interacting with the outside world.
• Maintaining thought records when outside so you can monitor your emotions

If you need help with this, you should take a look at Hemi-Sync Complete Review. You can use these to meditate, relax, or concentrate.

Conclusion

In this brief guide, we looked at anxiety from being away from home and how to deal with it.

If you have ever been away from home you may be no stranger to homesickness and wanting to be back in a comfortable space, but in some cases, this feeling can worsen and change into full-blown anxiety that makes it hard to stay away at all, and in some cases, it can even turn into Agoraphobia.

This anxiety from being away from home can make life very hard for just about anyone, as most people will agree that everyone needs to get away for better opportunities that their home cannot provide after a certain point, and therefore there is a need to deal with this anxiety.

If you have any questions or comments about anxiety from being away from home please feel free to reach out to us at any time.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Anxiety from Being Away from Home 

Citations

https://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/anxiety-attack-symptoms

https://www.verywellmind.com/symptoms-of-agoraphobia-2671979#:~:text=Agoraphobia%20is%20a%20fear%20of,help%20if%20intense%20anxiety%20develops.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/agoraphobia

https://www.healthline.com/health/effective-ways-to-fight-anxiety-without-drugs