Getting the Groceries

[clarity]

Hug blueberry.... the exhaustion is not fun.

x

[Blueberry]

Thank you. 

[Courtois@@1]

Hi Clarity,
It sounds like agoraphobia to me--fear of going outside. I have this, and it sometimes takes me a while to get out of the house.
On the street, it is quite intense--I have the strong feeling that people are going to hurt me.
One thing which helps me is to hold something in my right hand, I don't know why. I also generally avoid looking directly at people, although I know this may limit my chances for social interaction, which, given my instinctive fear of people, is fine with me.
This is all well described in that wonderful book by Pete Walker, Complex PTSD, From Surviving to Thriving, where he says that most "agoraphobia" is actually not a fear of open spaces per se, but rather fear of people. I'm assuming it comes from my early childhood experiences in my family.

If I might ask for a bit of advice from those on this forum: I have complex PTSD, and often have days when I feel much better, and then the next day, feel absolutely horrible. The "bad days" revolve around feeling very sinful, even for very small things that I rationally understand may not really be sins (this is my form of OCD, called "scrupulosity"). It's hard to identify any specific trigger for the "bad days," they just seem to happen. Has anyone else had this experience, and, if so, how have you dealt with it?