Claustrophobia: Face Your Fears Challenge

Meet Mary Singleton, a counselor at Agape Christian Counseling Services. Mary decided to challenge herself this month to face her fear of being enclosed in tight spaces, or claustrophobia. She made this video to document as she took a step towards overcoming that fear. Below is Mary’s account of the origin of her phobia and what she went through in order to make this video. Her numbered ratings are her level of fear or anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most afraid and 1 being the least afraid.

From Mary:

My fear of being in the far back seat of a van is part of my overall claustrophobia.  I have a fear of being trapped in a place that I can’t get out of.  When I’m in a van, sometimes it’s difficult to look back at the people in the back seat.  Just thinking about it now causes me to catch my breath.  It’s an intermittent thing in a van.  A few months ago we were staying in a hotel at a family wedding and a group of us had to go in a van to the wedding. I got in the van fast so I could choose a seat in the front.  I was very uncomfortable looking at the people in that back seat.   In the video the van was stopped and I had friends watching and supporting me, so it felt safer.  I thought it would be fun to challenge my fear with a group of friends and I did it as soon as I thought of it so I didn’t have time to talk myself out of it.  I would rate my fear in the video at a 2 or 3. After the video was over I heard a sound behind the van, turned around in the seat and realized where I was and got out of there fast.  I had a sudden moment of panic and my fear shot up to a 6 or 7–but I knew I could get out (that is what I told myself–I could see the path was clear).  If someone had been blocking my path I don’t know what I might have done to them.  I think I might have gotten mean. The thought process is that I can’t get out.  I will get stuck.  Writing that just now made me utter a slight whimper.   I can’t trace the fear to a specific incident, but I have had dreams since I was a child about being in a house that is built wrong–in order to get to the second story, you have to squeeze yourself through a tight space.  I have to turn away from TV shows where a person is crawling through a tight space–especially an underground tunnel.  If I can see that they can’t turn around in the space, it’s too tight.  I’m proud of myself that I did the video and faced my fear but I also think I was a wimp because the van wasn’t moving and I didn’t stay back there long.  My next step will be to stay in that back seat when a van is full of people and the van is moving.  Okay, so maybe not full of people.  Maybe I will stay in the back seat of a partially full van while it moves a short distance.  I do feel inspired to try this again in a more challenging way.  I don’t know if I will ever need to face the worst version of it though, which is crawling through a tight underground tunnel.  Do I ever need to do that?  I think I can live a long happy life and never crawl through a tight space.  But not being able to sit in the back of a van does limit my life.  I think it’s worth trying again. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I was surprised that it was so easy.