Man confronts anxiety disorder that has restricted his life to 1 mile from home

an estimated two and a half million adults in this country suffer from an anxiety disorder known as agoraphobia now it causes people to stay home to avoid situations that could trigger a panic attack like traveling our lead national correspondent david bagnos with us now to share one man's remarkable journey as he takes steps huge steps to overcome his agoraphobia david you don't use the word remarkable very often the story you know how you always say to me david where are you how did you find it yes you all know it does sound like good people at home are going yeah we know yes this story came to us two months ago we did a story about a news anchor in new orleans who left her job for a major life change and in that story she said something which inspired a houston texas man to write to us he said that his agoraphobia had him colorfully living but silently suffering and after six years of therapy the last two of which had been really intense he said david i am finally ready to confront some of my biggest fears hi david i watched your segment with karen swenson i am inspired what struck me most was when she spoke about her husband's cancer diagnosis quote when he was diagnosed we looked for the person who beat it when he passed i looked for the widow who was still smiling that was so powerful i'm a 35 year old houstonian and i suffer from agoraphobia i seemingly lead a normal life as a local store manager but no one knows that i haven't traveled beyond a one mile radius from my home in over 10 years my childhood was extremely limited due to my mother suffering with agoraphobia and my adult years have been no different since my diagnosis at the age of 19. you just read that on national television how does that feel it feels freeing finish the sentence for me for me agoraphobia is for me agoraphobia is prison the best way that i can describe it is feeling like i'm living in a glass box like there are walls and boundaries that i cannot get past and when i if i attempt to or when i do i literally feel as though i'm going to die you work across the street from your house i do you eat across the street i do tell me some of the things you've missed all of my sister's graduations my niece's graduation tons of birthday celebrations um two grandmother's funerals my sister's wedding she sends me an email right as she's about to walk down the aisle in the email she said uh i know that you would be here i'm sorry i haven't talked about this cecil found an online lecture from dr karen cassidy the owner of the chicago-based anxiety treatment center this year he emailed her while i have never met you it became clear that you understand some of the challenges that many of us face i want to reclaim my life dr cassidy arranged for a houston therapist to treat cecil with online sessions you have given us a list of things that you would like to do not things that we've asked you or pressured you to do correct but he was not prepared for what we had up our sleeve meeting dr cassidy for the first time in person you are the bravest man i know right now i've been so excited to see you i'm going to be your exposure coach today when you're practicing she flew to houston at our invitation to guide him on this big day tell her what you'd like to do so um i'd like to go to my therapist's office i'd like to write an escalator yeah i'd like to go to the grocery store part of dr cassidy's therapy would be to provoke cecil's anxiety by intentionally hyperventilating that this is done to get him used to the sensation of panic and learn that he can handle it and teach his body to not respond with panic attacks so my goal isn't to make this easy okay it's to step into the heat okay and to discover you can take it okay i'm willing to do difficulty so where's the first place we're going cecil so the first place we're going to go is to the mall we're going to ride an escalator he was last on an escalator four years ago so let's do it he'd rely on exercises to induce dizziness in order to push through fantastic you are acing this what did you feel um the sweaty palms the dizziness the um the sensitivity to light i think i stood there for like three minutes talking to her two minutes talking yes then it just subsided next up was the grocery store now cecil hadn't been to one of those in three years he is doing so it's amazing it's amazing to be here lines overwhelm him even the smallest purchase was a big accomplishment yes yes yes yes cecil was telling us earlier how some people will look at him and think i see anything wrong with him he looks totally fine and i in the store had that moment where i was like are you sure you're nervous because you look totally fine yeah yeah and that is so typical what we see is that when people have a panic attack usually they're the only one who notices and unless you know someone well and you know there's a tell like they get still or quiet you wouldn't know this is okay the next one is the real right that's the therapist office right if he can get to his therapist office that means he could have future appointments in person so you're ready to hyperventilate okay one two three and just keep doing it until you feel weird and then we'll start the car keep going really exhale hard until you get really weird feeling okay so what's your anxiety level right now yeah how are you doing right now um i am it's actually coming down pretty quickly um okay that that tells me something really good which is your body's already starting to lose its automatic oh no reaction five minutes later he arrived at the therapist's office and wanted to go inside and even say hello the next day he went back by himself my prayer has been to be seen um to be seen to be seen oh yeah i think that sometimes when you suffer you feel like nobody sees you when you deal with agoraphobia people write you off and you're often hidden in the shadows we see you cecil we see you thank you this story is a reminder that there are invisible monsters that people fight to conquer every single day and just know he's been in years of therapy he was ready to take that risk he was at the end of his therapy road and ready to jump off that proverbial diving board saying step into the heat that's right it's good to remember when you sat down we said are we going to cry today david you said no you're going to stand up and cheer so yeah there you go thank you so much and congratulations to him for conquering his fears

Channel: CBS Mornings

Views: 227,601

Keywords: video, cbs, news, anxiety disorder, mental health, cecil jackson, texas, agoraphobia, david begnaud, cbs mornings, panic attack, houston texas, living with anxiety, Dr. Karen Cassiday, anxiety treatment center of greater chicago, hyperventilate

Id: u_jfB7sd5uE

Length: 7min 13sec (433 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2022