Agoraphobia: Unhealthy Family Reactions

Once a person has tried to help a family member or spouse with agoraphobia by offering logic and reason and sees that it doesn't help, he or she will usually get frustrated and do one of the following:

1) Give up and emotionally detach from the person with agoraphobia
2) Become and enabler
3) Provide healthy support

The first two options are polar extremes - taking zero responsibility for helping and taking all of the responsibility. Both are unhealthy responses to agoraphobia.

Those who give up and emotionally detach from their family member or spouse with agoraphobia may start to say things like, "Well I guess I'll just let this be your problem since you won't let me help you" (putting the blame on the person with agoraphobia for not being receptive to help) or simply "I've tried everything I can, there's nothing I can do to help." Either way, they start detaching emotionally.

The people who emotionally detach from a family member with agoraphobia are not usually trying to be mean. In most cases, they just can't handle caring and feeling powerless to help or fix the problem.

Those who become enablers start trying harder to help when their first efforts fail. They may start doing everything for the family member or spouse like going shopping for them, communicating with others for them, driving them, entertaining them, fixing their meals, or in short, making their whole life about helping the family member or spouse with agoraphobia.

At first the enabler may seem kind and caring but in the long run they do the loved one with agoraphobia more harm than good. They, in effect, shield their loved one from having to face up to their fears or take any initiative toward recovery. A good enabler can make it too convenient for the agoraphobic not to work toward getting well. In some cases the person with agoraphobia enjoys the all the added love and attention they are getting from their spouse or family member so much that it actually gives them a reason not to get well.

Both giving up and detaching and becoming an enabler are unhealthy responses a spouse or family member can have to someone with agoraphobia. The most helpful response is to provide healthy support.

Providing healthy support means offering consistent encouragement and care without assuming responsibility for the disorder, or making it too convenient for the person with agoraphobia to stay sick and not his or her fears. (I realize agoraphobia is never convenient - but you know what I mean).

I will talk more about how to be a healthy support person for someone with agoraphobia in a later post.