Can you help me with my fear of swallowing and agorophobia?

I have a severe problem with eating and drinking due to an overwelming fear, this is totally controlling my life as well as my family and fiance. If my mum.brother and fiance are not in the house with me then I do not eat or drink and all three have to be around or else I do not feal safe. I only ever eat and drink in the evenings as the fear is more prominant in the daytime. Now I have a severe level of anxiety as next month my brother and my mum are going abroad, now I really am worried and do not know what I can do, to top things off I also have agorophobia. I have had the agorophobia for three years now and the swallowing phobia off and on for @ 10years. Can anyone help me as to how I can get through this. I am seriously thinking of residential care but I just dont know if I can go through it or if it really will be of benefit. Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Donna

Well those phobias are unreal, meaning there is no possible life-threatening factors. Instead of getting residential care, how about counseling? The ultimate goal here should be overcoming your fear, not enabling it. Sometimes the best way to get over a phobia is just to confront it. Figure out why you are afraid to swallow and why you are afraid of open spaces. Often these are manifestations of problems in other areas of your life that need attention. Or, just over come them by doing what you are afraid of. I have a fear of tall buildings collapsing with me in them (not specifiacally a fear of heights, I have no problem with height) and I got over my fears by going up in the Space Needle. Once you see there is nothing to fear after doing what you are afraid of it naturally goes away...

My overall advice, see a psychiatrist and attempt to over come your phobias.

Residential care. This problem is too chronic to be helped or fixed by an outline of suggestions on a web site.

I used to have the same fear. I had an incident where I choked and almost passed out as a child and was holding on to the fear so I couldn't swallow. I would chew the food and I would not be able to make my mouth swallow it. I was so afraid that it would get stuck. Sometimes I couldn't even swallow water.
With time I gained control of my fear by myself. You have to realise that this fear is something your brain is doing to protect you. You probably had an incident similar to mine some time ago and whether or not you even remember it, your brain is acting as your protection. If you learn to tell yourself that it's okay and the chances of you choking are very slim, you'll most likely be okay.
If you must, you could seek medical help. In your case it may be nessecary, in mine it wasn't. In any case, don't starve yourself. If you can handle liquids, drink something like slimfast, or protein shakes or meal replacements and soy milk. There are lots of programs out there for agorophobia, so residential care might help you out. All a medical facility or rehab will do for you is teach you to control your fear. They won't give you drugs or force you to eat, or come up with a magic potion to make it go away. You may be prescribed a medication for a chemical imbalance which is no biggy, and not really nessecary, they just like to give out meds... but, it can become costly depending on how long you stay.
I would do some research on your fear, and the more you learn about it, the less scary it will become.

Desensitization! Read a little about Albert Ellis and try to do some REBT. You may have had some traumatic experience(s) as a child that are resulting in this uncommon fear. There are so many questions. Do you have a physical issue with swallowing that justifies your fear? Why do you have agorophobia? Are you afraid of the open space itself or the other people? Email me, if you would like.

Go to your doctor about it & ask to be referred to a counsellor

oh dear....i have a phobia of vomiting...it drives me f*cking crazy so i know exactly what your talking about. Can you swallow spit or is it just food and drink? You might want to try some type of therapy for phobias.....try and figure out why you have the phobias and try to get to the root. though some just dont have a reason...as mine dont. HAve you tried any therapy before? Maybe some natural anti anxieties like St Johns wort? though you still have to swallow them which is a problem. I have the same problem as im worried just about anything that goes into my mouth with make me sick....which turns to a lot of accusation about eating disorders.....which im sure you get alot of as well!!

I have anxiety and depression and have been using an alternative therapy called Emotional Freedom Technique. It really has helped me a lot. Since using it I have been feeling a lot better. It's very good at getting rid of all kinds of negative emotions and dealing with all kinds of issues quickly. It does sound bizarre but does work. It might be something that can help you. If you type agoraphobia, anxiety and fear of swallowing in to the search engine of emofree.com you should find some articles about EFT helping people who have these problems.

hopefully this should help. every minute of every day you swallow but you swallow your own saliva automatically this would mean that you are swallowing so we will start there. because everyone does swallow and your fear is mainly based around the food and Drink then i would have to assume that you choked on something inn you're life but this is you're fear it is the fear of choking like that and not being able to stop you're self choking that is probably why you will only eat around people the reason that you give is also that you don't eat in the day only at night this suggests one of two things either you choked horribly as a young child in the day or it could be you're same fear but its because you can see other people eating more in the day i would suggest that you see your GP explain this to him and he may refer you to psychiatrist and they will be able to help you and hopefully cure you're fear of swallowing.

Oh my God I've had this swallowing phobia on and off in my life too I've never heard of anyone else having this problem too untill now. Certain things i do in order to help myslelf are cutting back on smoking as I've found excessive smoking makes my throat plegmy and makes it even harder and to always have a drink nearby and to sip it with each mouthful. As for your extreme problem I think you need intense treatment immediately and yes, a residential stay if you feel unable to cope by yourself. I also strongly reccomend you seek HYPNOSIS on the NHS people are sceptical but they can work miracles sometimes