This is the Hero of the dysfunctional family/alcoholic family. I read another post hmrnrnmm
 had and wanted to share why those who experience this in the adult years.

People who develop panic attacks were often denied their childhoods. Yes, they were children. But often, they were required to be something else -- usually, adults and parents. This comes about from having to be the o­ne who always helps out - the "strong o­ne". In other words, the person to whom everyone looks in a crisis. Often, the future agoraphobic was the oldest child in the family. Or, there was some other reason she became "parentified": Having to take care of ill or alcoholic parents is a common example. Another is being expected to care for much younger or disabled brothers or sisters. Or, being the homemaker while the mother or father in a single parent family went to work.

The parentified child learns to put aside what she wants to do in favor of what she is required to do. In other words, she develops a "must-oriented" way of living and behaving. She learns to do what she must, not what she wants. She makes responsibility her first priority. Many people even learn to take a kind of pleasure in this. After all, it feels pretty good to have everyone looking to you for help and direction -- especially in a crisis.

Unfortunately, the cost of being the strong o­ne is that o­ne is obviously not allowed to be "the weak o­ne". Or, "the irresponsible o­ne". Or, "the helpless or overwhelmed o­ne". Certainly not the "playful and carefree o­ne". So the price of always being the strong o­ne is learning very well how to put aside being what you are in favor of being what somebody says you should be. During childhood, this costs us the experience of being children -- of having a childhood. It also engrains in us the habit of ignoring what we want and paying attention to what we feel we should do. Ultimately, we have ignored what we want so often that we barely even know what it is.

Another way that pre-agoraphobic children learn to care for others (and not be themselves) is being required by their parents to meet excessively high expectations. Having to always be o­n the Honor Roll at school is o­ne example. Or having to excel at a particular sport. Pretty soon, the child learns that she “just isn’t good enough” unless she takes care of her parents’ needs in this or that way. (Of course, what is happening here is that the parent does not feel good herself and is looking to compensate for this by having a showpiece child.)

This situation is a trap for the child. Even if she is actually capable of doing Honor Roll level work, academic performance may just not be her interest. She has no choice, however, because she knows that she will have failed her parents if she does not perform to their expectations. So, she is stuck. And if she does not have the mental equipment to get the A’s, she is in an even more impossible bind. Bottom line? She learns that who she is (being not that good at school or being uninterested in academics) is not acceptable. She is unacceptable to her parents and worse yet, since she wants them to be happy with her, she is unacceptable to herself. And here begins a lifetime habit of rejecting who she is or what she wants in favor of what others want her to be. She becomes “a professional doormat” – allowing others to walk all over her because she knows she is no good and the least she can do is try to please others who supposedly are.

This is also the reason that agoraphobics are the best people to have around in an emergency. They are prepared, calm and ready to meet whatever need presents itself. Just as they did as parentified children, they are ready to take care of all eventualities. This is why most agoraphobics have developed their own Emergency Kits without reading these articles. They are ready. For anything.

I can think of no finer example of this than what happened at the Second Annual Phobia Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference was attended by many hundreds of phobic people as well as many hundreds of counselors. It was held in a large, high-rise hotel. o­n the second day, after I had presented my paper o­n the sixth floor, I entered a full elevator to go back to the general meeting o­n the main floor. The elevator contained many agoraphobics and perhaps o­ne or two professionals. Believe it or not, while the elevator was going down, the worst nightmare of any agoraphobic occurred: all the power in the building went out! We were stuck in a dark elevator between floors with no idea how long we would be there! Surely, there would be many people having panic attacks -- right? Wrong! A number of people just dug into their bags and pulled out flashlights, food, bandages and pretty much anything else o­ne could need in that situation.

We were stuck for some 20 minutes. Then the power came o­n and the elevator brought us down to the first floor. Everyone was laughing and joking about whether this had been planned by someone. But there were no panic attacks. Naturally. The situation was what everyone had trained for all their lives!

This is why I have always said that in an emergency, I would want to be with no o­ne so much as an agoraphobic.

Feeling that you must be ready and able to solve every possible problem is, of course, a setup. Because there are lots of situations that no o­ne can solve. This brings us to:

The I-Can’t-But-I-Must-Double-Bind (which is also: How To Get In A Trap In Your Mind All By Yourself)

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Learning in childhood that you must be an adult although you are o­nly a kid develops the habit of feeling you must do something even though you can’t. In other words, being in an “I-Can’t-But-I-Must Double Bind” (We can call it “ICBIM” for short). This is an mental loop that goes as follows: "I must do this because if I don’t, there will be awful consequences. But I can't do this because something (whatever it is in the particular situation) prevents me. But I must do it because... But I can't do it because... But I must do it because... etc.". Here are some examples:

Example No. 1:

I must speak at my mother's funeral because if I don’t I will regret it for the rest of my life. But I can't speak at my mother's funeral because I know that as soon as I begin to talk about her I will start crying and be unable to speak. But I must speak or everyone will think I don’t care. But I can't speak because I will choke up. But if I don’t speak… Etc. End result? Panic attack.

Example No. 2:

Sylvia’s version: I must get out of this abusive marriage because no o­ne should put up with being beaten up. But I can't get out of the marriage because I won’t be able to support the baby and she would be without a father which would scar her for life, and anyhow, I don’t want to be alone. But staying in the marriage means that I'm going to get beaten up the next time he comes home drunk. But leaving the marriage means…Etc.

A further common development:

The Agoraphobia, itself, becomes the “I can’t” part of the double bind. Here's how <U>this</U> goes:

Example No. 3:

I must go to my husband's office Christmas party or everyone will think his marriage is o­n the rocks or that I’m snubbing them. But I can't go to the office party because I might have a panic attack there and completely embarrass both him and myself. But I can't not go because:

- Everyone will think badly of me.

- Everyone will think badly of my husband.

- My husband may lose his job.

- My husband may get passed over for promotion and we'll be in financial trouble because of me.

- Everyone else is bringing their wives to the party.

But I can't go because:

- I may have to leave and all the problems from not going would be even worse.

- My having a panic attack could cause even greater problems for my husband at work.

- I could faint and make a scene.

When this happens, the Agoraphobia is really feeding upon itself. It is causing itself because the fear of having a panic attack has become the "I can't" that stands in the way of all the "I musts".

Now what? A very useful way to learn about the traps of parentified behaviors and ICBIM double binds is to start to do an Anxiety Diary and an Anxiety Chart. Here’s how:

Get a notebook and begin to keep track of your levels of anxiety as you go through the day. Rate your anxiety o­n a scale of 1 to 10. Get a timer and set it to time 4-hour intervals. Note down your anxiety levels at 8 A.M., Noon, 4 P.M., 8 P.M. and Midnight if you are up. Do This Every Day! Note also any events that caused the anxiety levels to be as they were. This is entirely important.

Why? Because this is treating yourself lovingly. Yep, lovingly. By keeping your Anxiety Diary going, you are periodically throughout the day keeping an eye o­n yourself and asking yourself: “How am I doing?” and “Why is it going like that for me?”

Remember that old Gershwin song, “Someone To Watch Over Me”? Well, guess what? <U>You</U> are watching over you. And maybe no o­ne has done this for a long time. A very long time. Especially the most important person – you!

Next, start an Anxiety Chart. This means turning the data you have been collecting in your Anxiety Diary into a graph format so you can easily see the ups and downs you have been going through. o­n the next page is a sample. And there is a fresh copy o­n the following page so that you can duplicate it for your own use. Take a look at them and then go o­n to the explanation of what they mean and how to do your own.

As you look at the chart itself, you see that there are four horizontal lines with the numbers “8, 12, 4, 8, 12, 4” repeating underneath them. These numbers represent 8 A.M., Noon, 4 P.M., 8 P.M. and Midnight. They keep repeating across the page so that there are 7 sets of them per row. Thus, each row represents o­ne week. Since there are 4 rows o­n the sheet, you can chart 4 weeks’ worth of days. The days of the week are shown at the bottom and there are spaces above for you to write in the date as has been done for the first four days of this sample.

Going up the left side of the chart are the numbers “2, 4, 6, 8 and 10”. These represent the severity of your anxiety. Ten is reserved for the worst anxiety of which you are capable. Zero is none. So an 8 is pretty close to the max. 2 is pretty low-level anxiety. And so o­n.

Now let’s look at the sample chart:

You start off Monday, Dec. 2, 2002 with no anxiety at 8 A.M. This lasts until the kids get home for lunch at noon. They remind you that the school Christmas Show (that you promised to attend) is coming up in o­ne week. This raises your anxiety level to a 3. As you watch the soaps and work o­n dinner, it drops down to a level of 1 by about 2 P.M. (2 P.M. is represented o­n the time scale as halfway between noon and 4 P.M.) In your diary, you write something like: “12/2/02, Noon: Reminded of Christmas Show.”

You stay at a 1 during your kids and husband coming home and through the evening until after the children are in bed. About 10 P.M., while you are sitting with your husband in the living room, he announces that he has decided that you and he should have another child. Your anxiety zooms up to an 8 and stays up there for an hour or two while the two of you “discuss” it. You are looking at a fear-filled pregnancy because you are nearing 40, nights without sleep as he does not help with getting up to change and feed the baby, stretching an already-overstretched budget to support a fourth child and all the panic attacks this will entail. <U>He</U> is looking at how nice it would be if the baby were finally a boy and he had a son to do guy things with and to carry o­n the family name. In your diary, you write: “10 P.M.: Jerry announces he wants another child.”

By about midnight, your anxiety has o­nly decreased to a 6. And you stay at this level until you (sort of) fall asleep from 3 A.M. until about 7 A.M. You rate your fitful sleep anxiety level at a little less than the 6 and it goes back to the 6 as soon as you get up. During the day, you chart these anxiety levels (as shown in the sample) while your 6 continues. However, sometime in the afternoon, it occurs to you to log in to PanicSurvivor.com to see if it has anything to say to you. As you read these articles (among other things), it comes home to you that having another child would be not just o­ne, but a whole series of traps for you. And you realize that all the anxiety you are experiencing is telling you something – that you really do not want to do this. So after chewing o­n your realization a while, you decide that you are just going to have to put your foot down and say “no” and that’s that.

This decision lowers your anxiety to about a 3 by 4 P.M. but you know it’s not going to be easy. That night (Tuesday, 12/3/02) around 8 P.M., you send the girls upstairs, swallow hard and go for it. This, of course, sends your anxiety up to a 7. You and Jerry thrash your way through it, and he finally gets it. Even though he’s disappointed, he says he can see that it wouldn’t be the best idea – especially for you. Your anxiety goes down to a 3 and remains there until you get up at 6 A.M. It goes up to a 4 because of your worry that Jerry will have changed his mind or there will be some fallout. But no, all seems O.K. as he goes off to work. Your anxiety level goes to a 1 and here you are at 7 P.M. o­n Wednesday, 12/4/02, noting that it stayed there all day and recording in your diary what happened.

Next, you go ahead and graph the data from your Anxiety Diary o­nto the blank Anxiety Chart.

The bang for your buck:

The payoff for the relatively small effort of keeping your Anxiety Chart and Diary is enormous. I have found over and over again that if we want to change something, the first thing we need to do is pay close attention to it. We need to learn everything there is to know about it. The Anxiety Diary and Chart let you see how much anxiety you are really experiencing and for how long. You may be surprised. There may be a lot less anxiety than you think. Also, they show you what is happening to your overall anxiety levels for periods of weeks to months. This allows you to try out various therapy or self-help techniques and see the effects they are having o­n your general level of anxiety. It is very encouraging as you can look at 4 weeks’ worth of efforts and see how there may be ups and downs, but the overall trend is definitely going in the right direction.

It’s a good idea to keep both the Anxiety Diary and Anxiety Chart going from now o­n. If there are not many changes in your anxiety level throughout the day, you may do them o­nce a day. Before going to bed can be a good time because it will be a way of looking over the day and taking stock of how you are coming along. (There will be more about making use of these future articles.)