Claustrophobia and anxiety issues

Summer89

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Hi,

I tried to find something about claustrophobia in here but the thread was not what i was looking for and it was quite old. Anyway my current wip is about a woman who suffers claustrophobia and ends up stuck in a tiny elevator with a stranger. How can i describe the feelings she goes through when she realizes that she is stuck in there and it can take hours before someone can come and rescue them. How does facing your fears feel like? (i have no clue)

The stranger in the elevator is trying to calm her down and wants to talk about life and some "deeper things" (completely normal to be talking about these things when you are stuck in a elevator with a stranger) ... My Mc is also afraid to talk about feelings. She gets anxiety when she faces a situation where she needs to talk about how she feels. It doesn´t matter if the feeling is good or bad she just locks up. Is there a name for that kind of anxiety or is it even a real thing?

appreciate any info about claustrophobia and anxiety issues stated above
 

rinnika

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I deal with anxiety on a daily basis so I think I can help here!

When my anxiety comes into play I tend to get a multitude of things happens at once - it varies every time though. I pretty much always get short of breath, overheated and shaky. It makes it hard to speak or hold things. In a close environment, getting too hot pretty much always involves sweating, which you can imagine makes me feel so much better! My brain freezes on the "get out of there" loop so rational thinking is pretty much impossible. These are kind fo panic attack things - I don't know if you want to go that route?

I don't get claustrphonbia as such, although I do get anxious in close proximity to others. That's because I have social anxiety as opposed to generalised anxiety.

I expect for your character she could end up going over and over bad scenarios in her head, like the elevator falling. Since my anxiety is social, my fears would centralise around that other person. Maybe he did something to the elevator, maybe he wants to hurt me etc. I suppose, if she isn't panicking like I always do, she would have to either rationalise her thoughts or redirect them. I can usually redirect my thoughts by asking about the person's day. I would ask what they had for lunch or what they did this morning, hoping for something that I can relate to and spur the conversation off in that way - essentially, biding my time until I can get control of myself again and forget/minimise the initial reason I was freaking out.

Talking about life would be good, but "deeper things" depends really on what the things are. In my experience, talking about my anxiety or why I was stressed or anything related to it would make it worse. That might just be me, I'm not too sure!

I guess the name for this is simply a phobia or anxiety? Mine is particularly socially related (hence, social anxiety) - the thoughts that spiral into a panic attack always revolve around somebody percieving me in a certain way or a social event I have to be at...You get the picture. :) Like I mentioned, I can help with the anxiety bit here, not so much the claustrophobia.
 

Kjbartolotta

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My mom is extremely claustrophobic, seems to run in the family since her mom was too and I'm no picnic in enclosed spaces either. I definitely have a touch of the social anxiety as well, though others in my family not so much.

For my mom, the experience is something akin to vertigo, an enclosed space feels indeed very enclosed, and usually she has trouble breathing and becomes very tense and quiet, with clenched fists and everything. One thing you should never do when she's experiencing this is try talking to her, or getting her to talk. If she were in an elevator with this gentleman, he would either be making her tension and claustrophobia much worse, or simply get told off in the most brusque way possible for being unhelpful, inappropriate, and creepy. That's how my mom rolls, if someone doesn't have the confidence or assertiveness to tell someone off like this, I imagine it would be quite a traumatic experience for them.
 
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shizu

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My physical symptoms are pretty similar to others in this thread -- trouble breathing, fast heart-rate, vertigo/dizziness (like, literally the walls will seem to be closing in, it affects my perception and vision to that extent). I might also feel faint, or if not then certainly I'll be hit with some derealization sensations, wherein I'll feel like nothing that's happening is quite 'real', which is quite a horrible sensation.

I'm thinking more about her interaction with the stranger, though. Do they have any experience whatsoever in dealing with a person in an anxiety situation/panic attack? If not, then it's likely their attempt to calm her down might make things ten times worse. Just being told "You need to calm down" or words to that effect can be even more upsetting to someone who's panicking. We know we should calm down, we just can't. Reminding us will only get us more frustrated and anxious.

Talking, however, depending on the subject can be a big help because it serves as a distraction. Sometimes it helps just to listen to someone else mulling over 'deeper things', and some people feel it helps to involve themselves in the conversation because that takes you out of your own head for a while, and it can definitely help calm you down. Like I said though, the subject is important -- telling an anxious person to calm down AND insisting on talking on a subject that makes them stressed out and uncomfortable? Sounds like a recipe for disaster, which may or may not be what you're going for in that scene!

How she'd face her fears in that sort of situation depends. For the claustrophobia itself, in my case closing my eyes might help, in that it tricks you into feeling like you're not in such a small space. Visualization could help there too (guided visualization -- "you're in a wide open field/on a big deserted beach" etc. -- might help if the stranger has any experience with it?). Some people will sort of plateau in their physical anxiety response, so it can only escalate so far. Breathing issues might lead to hyperventilation, which could result in an actual faint while the body readjusts its oxygen levels. Some people, if their anxiety was bad enough, might just shut down completely and disassociate until the event was over (and would likely face residual trauma afterwards). Most people will have some form of coping mechanism, even if it's just to bear it to the best of their ability until they could get out.

Her difficulty in discussing her feelings definitely sounds like a form of social anxiety, as rinnika mentions.
 

Summer89

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Thank you for the responses, they are all really helpful.

I was going for the complete disaster in this scene. The stranger is making it way worse until he understands what she needs in order for her to calm down. The srtanger is a normal "douche" guy who says inappropriate things with out thinking etc.. I was thinking about my Mc having a panic attack and she ends up in a small ball, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth in a corner. Might make her mumble something too. She has a coping mechanism what she is constantly going over and over in her head like a mantra.


You gave me so much to work with with all these descriptions.. So i am off to write :Hail: Thanks again
 
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Debbie V

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For anxiety, I use self talk to cope, so others trying to get me to talk would interfere. And I'd be bothered by going deep as if we weren't strangers. Creepy.

I have been stuck in an elevator with a claustrophobic mother. She tried not to show it but she was pacing. My dad kept pressing the elevator button as if the alarm weren't going off already. I was trying to keep everyone calm so my toddler would stay calm. (She developed a fear of elevators, but is over that now at 17).
 

WeaselFire

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Sheer panic and terror. Heart starts beating faster, gets harder to breath, chest hurts, similar to a heart attack and only an EKG can tell. Full blown panic attack. Fight or flight kicks into high gear. No flight means fight in your case.

From a guy who's spent a number of overnights in a hospital emergency room and been admitted twice after a claustrophobia driven panic attack. :)

Jeff
 

frimble3

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Not claustrophobic, but the other guy in the elevator sounds really creepy, FWIW.
I have found that a stranger who "wants to talk about life and some "deeper things" " is usually code for:

1) I want to talk about myself at great length, feel free to nod and smile
2) I'm going to get real creepy: ask intrusive personal questions and make inappropriate remarks.
3) Religious nut
Perfect if you want him to be an additional stressor, not so much if you were thinking of him as a love interest.
 

Anna Spargo-Ryan

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When I was a kid I saw some people trapped in a glass lift and I refused to get in one for a good five years after that! I also have a severe anxiety disorder and am very claustrophobic (also agoraphobic – very confusing).

Rocking back and forth is a bit of a stereotype. I would be much more likely to pace and talk than to curl into a ball. For me, it's important to keep working on changing the situation, however futile – the "fight" WeaselFire mentioned. The guy being there would exacerbate it enormously and introduce embarrassment and guilt as well. I'd probably scream, say I couldn't breathe, feel like I was going to pass out. Panic attack symptoms are physically painful, again as WeaselFire's described.

Depending on how long I was in the lift, I might eventually exhaust myself and kind of come out the other side. But then I'd probably panic again, once I'd had a rest :D
 

Woollybear

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Some elevators have two doors. I feel that she would wish the elevator had a second door. I feel that she would look at the escape hatch in the ceiling. Take off her shoes. Think about getting up there.
 

shizu

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Strangely, agoraphobia (the fear of being outside of the safety of one's enclosed residence) evokes identical panic/anxiety symptoms.

caw

Like Anna Spargo-Ryan, I've got agoraphobia AND claustrophobia, and that's been one of the things I've found ironically funny over the years. I find it helps cope with my disorder when I can laugh at how ridiculous it can be sometimes. But I guess, at its core, both situations -- being trapped and being outside your safe zone -- evoke a sense of "Get me outta here, this place is NOT safe!" They're both environmental stressors that are wildly out of your control.

Then again, I've found that any of my -phobias (of which there are many...) produce the same symptoms. I've spoken to friends with anxiety/panic disorders whose triggers are totally different to mine and they experience the same range of symptoms. The illness/disorder part exists in the response rather than the stressor itself. Regardless of what initially triggers our anxiety, that physical fight-or-flight reaction tends to produce the same kinds of symptoms within the nervous system (the effects of adrenaline, the activation of the autonomic nervous system etc.).
 

Summer89

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Thanks for the new ideas you all gave me. I did write the scene already but it is missing something... more feeling and moving around, maybe removing shoes etc...

And yes the guy in the elevator is a total creep and my imagination didn't agree with me that he could calm her down so instead he ends up in a cop car badly beaten up by the love interest :Shrug:
 

Woollybear

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"Missing something" ... I've found a trick for this--it might be helpful for you too. There are some books that I have read so many times I know where the key emotional points are, and when I hit a patch in my story where something is missing, I grab those books and flip to that part.

And then I think to myself: Aha! I forgot to add (for example) the conflict in her mind.

I shouldn't be so nervous. Dammit, it doesn't help, just makes it harder to think. Jenny would be cool as a cucumber, but me? No. What was that strategy the therapist said to try? Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. God I want out of here. etc

Or: Oh! I get it! I didn't add in the memory of when the original fear-inducing situation had happened.

It wouldn't be so bad if this elevator wasn't exactly like that other one, down to the stain in the corner of the carpeting. She didn't think about that elevator twice in a year, but this one was the same. Even the buttons, with the 'G' worn off the bottom one.

Her breath grew ragged as she realized the man hadn't taken his eyes off of her.
etc.

Or whatever--those are just thrown together as examples of devices--but looking through some favorite books at the scenes that have similar events/feelings can give you great insight into the element that you instinctively feel is missing.
 
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