Erica 0:41

Hi, welcome back to the life review anxiety podcast. It's Erica joined by my dog, Sadie, who will hopefully be quiet right now. welcome to the life free of anxiety podcast, where each week we'll bring you another discussion to help you on your way to overcoming your fears. I'm Erica and together with dr. Charles Barr, a licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in anxiety. We'll be your guides on this journey to find a list of helpful free resources we offer head to live free of anxiety.com. Because you are not broken, you are not alone. And you are on your way to living a life free of anxiety. She always wants to come in here, but she's not always cooperative with being quiet. So we'll see how this goes. Funny story. This week, I I'm sending this. The same story you might see in the email I'm sending out to you guys. Um, but I went to my friend's house and I brought my little one year old son and she, my friend has two kids and the older girl is four and the little boys almost too. Um, but the little girl is. Just really at the age where everything's Y and w what does that say? And tell me is she just has so many questions, but what we were over there, we were playing in the backyard and I felt like she had an okay time with us, but as me and my son were walking out the door, she was screaming and her mom said, I'm sorry, I have to take her inside. She's melting down. I didn't really think that much of it. We just kind of left, but when I got home, I got a text message from my friend that said, Oh, she was so upset. She wanted to go with you. And Marissa said, Oh, that's sweet. Did she wanted to go with us? I didn't even know. She was really having that much fun. She's a little bit older than my one year old son. So they couldn't even really play together. But I said, did she want you to come with us? And she goes, no. So basically she wanted to leave her mom behind and jump in the car with us and go, who knows where, but anywhere she was willing to go because she poor thing is a child who is stuck in the house with, you know, all this safer at home stuff. And it's hard. It's hard at first I thought it was funny and I started thinking about it and I was thinking, that's kind of all of us right now. Like, take me with you. I'll do anything. I'll go anywhere. This is getting kind of old, right? But I just thought that was funny and, and, and, and sad at the same time, but sometimes you just, you kind of have to laugh. So anyways, I hope you will laugh along with me. I know it's, it's crazy. This time is crazy, but I also hope it kind of, you know, opens up some opportunities for you to. You know, work on anxiety for the first time or, or have the time to kind of focus on you so we can look at that positive, right? Um, something not as positive, really sad. We lost region is Philbin a couple of days ago. You might've heard that. I know he was older, but he's such a. Iconic hosts. I mean, I grew up watching him and for a while, he was kind of the only person really who mattered on TV. He had his morning show with Kathy Lee Gifford and, and they were just a huge deal. Um, my mom used to tell me stories about working on the same lot as him. And how sweet he was. They would walk to the car together when they'd both get off work. They did not work on the same show, but she just would tell he was the nicest man. And so I always had this great image of him in my head. Funnily enough, he actually hosted, um, two of the creators of change. That's an Seagrave and face in Covington who you've heard on the show before. And we just said it would be appropriate and fun to play the audio of the title they were interviewed by Regis about the change program. Um, and for those of you who don't know the change program, that's changed with two A's is a program designed to help you overcome anxiety. The one I use to overcome my anxiety, it's the one dr. BARR use to overcome his anxiety. And it's the one he introduced me to when I came to him with anxiety and he's a licensed clinical therapist and he said, this is what's going to work. Um, so anyways, that's what the change program is. And I just really hope you enjoyed this audio and get to learn a little more about the program and also, um, just kind of a way to honor Regis.

Regis Philbin 5:01

Let's talk about a girl phobia, which is a condition which sometimes can be so intense that it paralyzes people to the point where they are afraid to leave their homes. They're just afraid to be out in public. And we have two recovered, uh agoraphobics with us today, suddenly they are the co founders of an organization devoted to help agoraphobics, which is called change. And we'll give you more information on how you can reach them in just a moment. But sitting next to me is an Seagrave. Who can not recall her first agoraphobic attack, a lover. She suffered for years with self doubt and underemployment fear of finding herself in stressful situations next to her as a face on a Covington who first began to experience the frightening panic of agoraphobia when she went away to college at the university of North Carolina in Greensboro. Nice to have you both on the show today. Is it phase on

Faison Covington 5:48

it's face and

Regis Philbin 5:49

facing. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. So you have been suffering with this for a number of years now.

Ann Seagrave 5:56

I haven't been, I've been over Agra phobia for seven years. I suffered with Agra phobia for four years from the ages of 32 to 36.

Regis Philbin 6:03

And how bad was it? Were you

Ann Seagrave 6:05

housebound? I wasn't housebound and I think that's a misunderstanding. I think most people are not housebound. I had my first panic attack in a car. And pretty soon I decided that avoiding the car was what I wanted to do because each time I got in my car, I would panic and have all the physical symptoms associated with panic. So pretty much I became housebound out of not wanting to drive. I see.

Faison Covington 6:31

I see.

Ann Seagrave 6:32

But I don't, I think classically people hear housebound condition. When probably 98% of the people who have agoraphobic are not housebound.

Regis Philbin 6:41

Okay. But isn't it strange that for the first 32 years, or for your life, you weren't bothered by

Ann Seagrave 6:45

this? It was as strange to me as it seems to you. Well, you know, the first panic attack, I think for anyone is a horrifying experience because you think something drastically. Physically is happening to you, a heart attack, your heart pounds, you feel hyperventilation coming on. You may feel like you're going to faint. That certainly is what happened to me. And I thought I was very ill.

Regis Philbin 7:09

What was your first attack? Like

Faison Covington 7:11

was at college and it was about 20 minutes after my parents drove away. And it was, it was a lot more of a, of a clear cut anxiety situation than ANZ was. I mean, I was under stress. But I didn't know what, so that when the anxiety attack came, um, I didn't know. That's what it was. In fact, I thought I was having a stroke. What did you do? Well, when it started, I began having heart palpitations and hyperventilation and, and I was shaking and I was sweating and I was very dizzy and very confused. So I couldn't do anything for about 20 minutes. Uh, I mean, I couldn't walk. I just, I just sort of sat there and waited to get and a strength to get up and go to the infirmary.

Regis Philbin 7:51

And then would it come back like in waves and

Faison Covington 7:53

cyclists, it would come in waves as a real good war, because when you're having an anxiety attack, it feels like a wave. I mean, you can feel it starting and you, and your first thought is, Oh no, it's here. And here it is again. And for me, it just. It never ceased. I had my first panic attack and I had my second one the next day. Wow.

Regis Philbin 8:12

So how many years did you?

Faison Covington 8:13

I had a 13,

Regis Philbin 8:14

13 years. And did you say eight and

Ann Seagrave 8:16

four? Okay. All

Regis Philbin 8:18

right. How do you find your way out of this?

Ann Seagrave 8:20

Well, I think it's very difficult. I think the first step is identifying that this is what you have most people who suffer from severe anxiety or Agra phobia. Can diagnose themselves because they know what's happening. You can feel these waves of panic as facing, just described. And pretty soon, even though you're going from doctor to doctor, what you're hearing is you are physically. Okay. And so you began to think then there has to be something more. How you come out of it is learning and recognizing that what you've developed is a very nonproductive behavior, obviously, and you need to change that behavior. You need to learn some skills

Regis Philbin 8:59

and everybody gets involved in stress situations, and sometimes don't. Feel like they can overcome whatever it is they're afraid

Ann Seagrave 9:05

of.

Regis Philbin 9:06

How do you, uh, differentiate between that

Ann Seagrave 9:09

and what you had differences in personality? There is a very specific personality type that develops Agora phobia. A good example is my husband who is very calm, very low key person. I'm a type B, you know, we've heard a lot about type a personality type B under stress. He reacts. Very calmly. He'll pull up the covers and go to bed and forget it for a day or two people with Macron have personality and faces tend to take on the stress and insist upon going that extra step, which produces more stress, which culminates in the anxiety.

Regis Philbin 9:45

You are in housebound where you naturally not Jordan college, you had to get out of the way.

Faison Covington 9:49

See, I hit it so long. I went through so many different phases with my condition and there was a period right after I was married that I was pretty close to being housebound. I would not leave the house unless my husband forced.

Regis Philbin 10:00

Did he know that you had this?

Faison Covington 10:02

He knew we didn't know what I had. Uh, we knew there was something wrong, but I went to about 30 different doctors and they did not know what it was. So I think Ann's right. When she said getting over it, step one is finding out what it is.

Regis Philbin 10:15

Okay. So after you find out what's step two

Faison Covington 10:18

or step two is kind of a continuation of the educational process. It's understanding. Like Anne said, the factors that lead up two at the developmental kinds of things, because one of the things that people with acrophobia struggle with so much is am I going crazy? Is this a mental illness that I have? And in our program, we do about four sessions of pure education before we even get to the therapy process. Because we want people to be, to be so confident that they do not have a mental illness that they're dealing with, um, sort of a nonproductive habit pattern and we call it a learned condition. Um, so I think that was, that was very important for me. That was maybe 50% of getting older

Regis Philbin 10:57

to know that you aren't mentally

Faison Covington 10:58

in the beginning to get a handle on what it was that I was. Feeling that I wasn't going to die and I wasn't going to have a stroke and I wasn't going to lose my mind during one of these attacks.

Regis Philbin 11:06

And then of course, I suppose the next step is for you to get out there,

Faison Covington 11:10

get out there and begin to do the things that you've avoided. And for me, there were very many things.

Regis Philbin 11:15

Was it like the first time you were out there knowing that you were mentally ill? Here was a challenge, still scary.

Faison Covington 11:21

It's still very scary. What do you

Regis Philbin 11:23

feel like doing

Faison Covington 11:23

running and hiding? I don't feel like going

Ann Seagrave 11:25

home. I think the first thing is you be like getting the heck out of Dodge. You know, you feel like if I could just leave, I would feel better. And the truth is you do. For instance, I could drive halfway somewhere and suppose the panic came upon me. I could turn that car around and drive all the way back home. It never occurred to me that if I just kept going. That I would be okay. And I was perfectly fine when I turned around and went home. So what you have to do is get beyond that fear and I think face and said it, you know, you really have to know what you're dealing with so that you're not frightening yourself with what's happening because the first time out you will feel anxiety and you have to kind of utilize yourself. The skills, we teach very specific skills. The one thing, the reason facing, and I even developed a program in the first place was because we know that this particular personality type loves structure. So we structured a program step by step. And if you follow those steps, what you're going to do is walk out of the anxiety.

Regis Philbin 12:24

And how long does it take you to develop that kind of confidence?

Ann Seagrave 12:27

Yeah. Well, our program is 15 weeks. I like to tell people that, that start with us, that. At the end of the 15 weeks, I was at the point where I could do the things that I had been avoiding. I had not practiced enough of those things like flying. I didn't have an opportunity to fly, so I hadn't practiced enough of them to be totally comfortable. And it took me another six months, I think, continuing with the practicing. To get. So I didn't think about it anymore.

Regis Philbin 12:53

And now you're totally cured. You don't have any apprehensions, then you get a big city, like New York with a strange host. Like

Ann Seagrave 13:01

not even getting out

Regis Philbin 13:02

Linus, Pauling ring around here,

Ann Seagrave 13:05

not Lana's falling. Wasn't the light.

Regis Philbin 13:07

Wasn't he? The light. As soon as I said sex

Ann Seagrave 13:09

to him, he

Regis Philbin 13:11

made a tour of the audience. I don't know.

Ann Seagrave 13:13

Do you know? And he pointed out something that I think is very interesting. He was talking about stress. Yeah. And how to reduce stress in your life. And that's exactly what we're teaching because you know, most of us grew up without the ability to have our next door neighbor to talk to and get rid of our anxieties that way. And I'll bet there'd be a lot less agoraphobic if we did that,

Regis Philbin 13:32

but there are a lot of people out there wondering what the name of the organization is and how to get a hold of you. And we'll come back and tell you that just enough.

Erica 13:41

Well, I hope you guys enjoy hearing that, you know, we've had face in Covington on the show before and, um, and that was probably a pretty cool experience for her. We've talked to her a little bit about the people who have interviewing, who have interviewed her before and Regis Philbin. I mean, what a big deal that she got to talk to him. I. I mean, I think, and also just what an amazing host and yeah. Interviewer, he was, I've interviewed a ton of people before. I know how hard it is. I know how hard it is to try not to interrupt somebody, but also need to, you know, you need to cut them off at the right moment and ask them a new question and, um, how you can forget what you were saying. Mid-sentence I mean, I know it's hard and he made it look so easy. He was just. He was such a pro he was so great at what he did. And a lot of that was because he brought his real personality to it and he was just likable. So definitely gonna miss him. Glad we could pay tribute to him by doing this episode. Like I said, it's just so cool. That change was. Thought of as, um, spectacular enough to be on, you know, something with Regis, uh, Larry King, I know also interviewed them and Oprah, but the very cool and exciting. And if you do want to learn more about the change program, you can head over to change.com. That's changed with two A's. Our beta group signups are ending. So if you want to be a part of the group we're doing. Even if you just want to do the program without the group, the deadline for that is this week. Cause we are launching next week. So I'm super excited. I just smiled in my car yesterday. Thinking about. Um, how I know I'm going to get emails about people just turning their lives around and feeling better again, just like I did. So if you want to sign up, that's change C H a N G E. Change with two A's dot com and check out joining us for this beta launch August 3rd. All right. I will talk to you guys next week. Thanks so much for tuning in today. I hope that something in today's conversation provided you with a feeling of hope, determination, or purpose. I know what you're going through, and that's why I want to give you some of the tools that helped me in my anxiety journey to get a free copy of free from fears had to free from fears, book.com to find out more about the changing anxiety treatment program. Find us@changewithtwoways.com. Thanks again for listening. And remember you were not broken. You were not alone, and you were on your way to living a life free of anxiety. See you next week.