Agoraphobia:
How anxiety leads to staying inside
Megan Finke
Battle Creek Public School

Abstract
People that have anxiety and phobias often experience panic attacks, which can lead to agoraphobia. There were different causes for anxieties that helped people to have agoraphobia. It also showed what symptoms show up when the person is having anxiety. There are also risk factors for people prone to having anxiety. There are different types of phobias that lead to agoraphobia and also symptoms that show up to. Panic attacks are also a major cause in why people develop agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia: How anxiety leads to staying inside “I am too scared to even go outside,” a woman with agoraphobia says to her husband. She is afraid that something bad will happen if she goes to the grocery store again because of that one time when she had a panic attack while she was shopping for groceries. She can hardly even leave her house now with out feeling very scared and she could never even think about going out alone. In fact, this woman is not alone because 80 percent of people with agoraphobia are women just like the woman I described (Nebenzahl, 2006). But these people do not just all of a sudden wake up one day and decide that they are going to have agoraphobia, there are many things that lead up to getting this phobia. It first starts with just simple anxieties and phobias that people have. Then it leads to panic attacks which cause panic disorder. Ultimately, the person can be affected with agoraphobia. People that have anxiety and phobias often experience panic attacks, which can lead to agoraphobia. Anxiety is an intense apprehension that may or may not have an obvious cause. There are many different types of anxieties that people can acquire including general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and separation anxiety (“Children’s Fears and,” 2004). Generalized anxiety disorder affects 1 in 25 people in the United States in one year alone (“Anxiety Disorders,” 2004). The people that develop it in their childhood tend to worry about things like pleasing everyone’s expectation, grades, and also about getting hurt while they are playing (“Children’s Fears and,” 2004). There are also people who do not develop it until their young adulthood and the women are more susceptible to it than men are (“Anxiety Disorders,” 2004). Another type of anxiety is social anxiety which many children develop because they are very shy and fear anything new that they have not seen or been through before. They also often hang on their parents and are frightened of reading aloud. Separation anxiety is also something very common in very young children who are afraid of being away from their parents or even their home. It can develop unexpectedly, because of stress, or even from social phobia and panic attacks. When they have separation anxiety they may fear staying over at someone’s house or even going to a birthday party (“Children’s Fears and,” 2004). There are many causes of anxiety; one way that a person is at risk to developing anxiety is by inheriting it from their family. Anxiety can also develop an anxiety by experiences in their childhood, like poor bonding with the child and parent in the child’s early years of life. In generalized anxiety a stressful event like a death of someone close to the person can set off having the anxiety. Also, sometimes it can happen for no apparent reason and just all of a sudden show up (“Anxiety Disorders,” 2004). There are also many symptoms that show up when a person is having anxiety. They often have a sense that something bad is going to happen when they have no real cause for it. They also tend to be on edge or unable to relax and even have impaired concentration. People with anxiety may also have repetitive worrying thoughts about things. On a more serious note they may have disturbed sleep and sometimes nightmares