August 15, 2012

you win an argument on facebook, you’ve already lost. . .

By arlynnpresser

i don’t remember exactly how it happened or what was said, but i remember i violated the most important rule for parents on facebook:  if you are so lucky as to be confirmed as your child’s friend you may not comment–nay, you cannot even look–at your child’s posts.

i did. i looked and i even commented.  something parental, along the lines of “i think you shouldn’t”

this is not either of my sons. my heart goes out to the mother of this poor man. every mom should know that she shouldn’t look, it will only break her heart, at her progeny’s facebook photos.

my sons erupted in a baffling and quick comment and reply i was awash in tears.  until eastman called me and said everything was just for show.  “if you win an argument on facebook, you’ve already lost,”  he said.

i was reminded of his wisdom, forged upon his twenty years on this planet, last night as i logged on.  there are many support groups on facebook, one for every supportable human condition.  i am a member of several associated with agoraphobia.  i joined all of these early this year, after i started my facebook new year’s resolution to meet all my facebook friends.  last year, i resolved to meet all 325 of my facebook friends, no matter where in the world they might be.  by the end of the year i had met 290–and had discovered that about ten percent were spambots, in prison, were hopscotching the world in such a way that we could not meet, or had some reason they didn’t want to meet me.  including being dead.

i still consider myself agoraphobic.  meaning i am terrified to leave the house.  the problem is that my house now includes the world.

my home is also five bags in the back of my car: one for computer equipment, one for shoes, for clothes, for cosmetics and soaps, and for just every day. and of course there is william clark my facebook friend who is both a stuffed toy and also a nineteenth century adventurer.

every morning i wake up and the first thing i say to myself is “this is the day that the Lord has made.  i will be happy and grateful” and then i quickly think of ten things that i am grateful for.  before i think of things that make me stay in bed and say fuggeddaboudit!

does that make me religious?  i don’t think of myself as particularly so.  but without this ritual i would probably fall into a former habit of refusing to get out of bed at all.

coffee also helps. if i try to make any decisions in the morning without having three cups, i am doomed.

last night, i observed on facebook two groups devoted to the support of people with agoraphobia.  the two groups devolved into–well, i won’t put to fine a point on it–a bitchfest of accusations of members and admins (administrators) being non-agas — not particularly agoraphobic. one woman was outed as a non-aga because she had recently been able to get out of the house.  even holding down a job.  she was still the administrator of a support group on facebook devoted to agoraphobics but she was badmouthed by a few members of another group.  defriending.  blocking.  barring from the group.  closing the formerly open group.  posting, more posting and still more posting.  and cut and pasting slanderous posts and reposts.  and j’accuse.  lots of j’accuse.

the adminstrator (and facebook friend of mine) of one group deactivated her account, taking down (inadvertently or not) many photos beloved by the group as a whole.  she reactivated her account and the photos were reposted a few hours later.  i think someone won the argument.  but i think whoever won has lost.
i’m not sure i’m entitled to be in any of the support groups for agoraphobics and other housebound people on facebook.  i was someone who was housebound.  i could be someone who is housebound tomorrow.  every day i wake up with the decision  and every day i am unsure whether i can do it.  mostly i do.  some days i can’t.  but every day i start with this

i think of myself as a secular person. . . what is it with this? how do you start your day? how do you get your ass out of bed? because if i don’t start with this and a list of a lot of gratitudes i’m damn grumpy and then i falter.

 

i am with the majority of the group members of the support groups i am part of:  we need to be supportive of whatever  we are, wherever we are in life.  we struggle, we figure it out, we forgive ourselves, we forgive other people.

 

and if we have time we post this on every friend’s page every day. although after a few weeks it would be annoying, so we’d switch to posting pictures of cute kitties or inspirational sayings. oh, whoops, most of us already do this!

 

 

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August 14, 2012

it’s aural, not oral, photography!

By arlynnpresser

“jeez, get your mind out of the gutter,”  i said.  “i’m not a kardashian sister!”

i was explaining to maximillian my photography adventure with facebook friends carolyn quinn and azusa watanabe.  it’s not oral it’s aural–a form of photography that is meant to capture the inner essence of a person.

“it’s meant to capture the subtle color radiances that surround a person,”  i said.  “also called the life field.”

“uh huh.”

“we went to a place that did aural photography right after our lunch at laconda verde.”

“how was the restaurant?”

“well, the food was middling but expensive and the atmosphere was chaotic, but otherwise. . . ”

laconda verde is a restaurant in manhattan owned by robert de niro. my facebook friend michele persiak has agoraphobia but so wanted to go to this restaurant that she managed to get out of her house, take the staten island ferry and come to the restaurant with us. at his morning staff meeting, mr. de niro no doubt was determined that his waiters and waitresses deliver the highest standards of new york service. mr. de niro starred in the 1976 movie taxi driver as an angry, depressed, homocidal young new york man. but a taxi driver, not a waiter.

after lunch, michele went home and i hope she is aware that if you can have lunch at laconda verde, you can make it anywhere!  but i wanted to spend a little more time with carolyn and azusa.  i was particularly intrigued by azusa.  we became friends in february of last february.  a japanese social media site mixi.jp did a story about my facebook new year’s resolution.  when azusa was traveling in the united states this summer she made a point of contacting me and figuring out when we would be in the same city.  i really appreciate that!  azusa is a teacher of conversation english in tokyo.

the new york lunch bunch–carolyn, azusa, me, and michele. none of us would be friends without the help of facebook. so thank you mark zuckerberg!

carolyn suggested that we go to china town and get our aural photographs taken.  she has done so before and it turns out she is what is termed an “indigo girl”. . . which means that she has a great degree of creativity and spirituality.  we went to a small little shop that sold crystals, jewelry, herbal supplements.  each of us sat for our picture.  the photographer was a little strict.

as it turns out carolyn again was revealed to be an indigo girl!  which meant that her picture was a fuzzy melange of purple-ish tones.

carolyn is hard to see with all that life field around her!

azusa and  i turned out to be sort of yellow and red, meaning we had a great deal of creativity and verve.  oddly, all three of us were advised by the photographer that our chakra showed that we needed some sleep.  well, azusa was jetlagged, carolyn has bronchitis and me?  i hadn’t slept the night before because i was starting to worry about how i was getting home.  and i had a right to be worried!

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August 12, 2012

in order to succeed. . .

By arlynnpresser

in order to succeed, a million things must go right.  in order to fail, only one thing has to go wrong.  i admit that on the morning of august ninth i was thinking there’s going to be that one thing today.  four friends coming together for lunch at laconda verde in new york city.  one coming in from japan.  one from brooklyn.  one from staten island.  and me?  i get lost everywhere.

i just didn’t think it could happen.

facebook friend #316 carolyn quinn woke up on that morning and had a completely different mindset!

on may 9th of this year, i met michele piersiak of staten island.  she is the 317th facebook friend i have met with since i made the new years resolution to meet all my facebook friends.  so often, we have friendships and partnerships that exist online, on the phone, on facebook or twitter or instagram–and it’s important to supplement those interactions with real time.

michele followed the progress of my resolution because she shares a characteristic with me–we are both agoraphobic.  we both have awful panic attacks and tend to look for our “safe” zone–and that zone can expand and contract.  in my case, it has expanded considerably because of my facebook project.  in michele’s case, she had been nearly housebound for more than a year because leaving the house affords too many opportunities for panic.   but she’s just too young and pretty and bright and with so much to offer . . .  it’s a darn shame to take that away from the world.

i’m a believer in tackling small goals and in doing so creating courage for tackling bigger ones.  for michele, a big goal is to become a doctor to help others with this condition.  a smaller goal was to have lunch at laconda verde.  i said if she could make it to the restaurant in manhattan,  i would fly out and take her there.  she’s been working on getting out of the house and this morning she would get on the staten island ferry.  we picked her up at the station.  she was accompanied by her boyfriend anthony.

michele did something that is really important.  she planned what she was going to bring.  as someone who now lives out of her little orange bag, i totally understand.

we got off the ferry and took a cab to the restaurant.  we were met by facebook friend #326 azusa watanabe who had flown in from japan a few days before.

the second most wonderful thing about lunch was dessert! the most wonderful thing was being with friends! after lunch azusa, carolyn and i went to have our auras photographed. michele and anthony went home to staten island. i think michele can do anything she sets her mind to!

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August 10, 2012

this is how new yorkers welcome a traveler to the city!

By arlynnpresser

two months ago i made a commitment to facebook friend michele persiak that i would fly into new york just to take her to lunch at her favorite restaurant laconda verde.  why?  because michele had been experiencing a period of anxiety attacks and agoraphobia that made it impossible to leave her staten island home.  what was a place that would motivate her to walk around the block, take the bus a few stops, go to the store, all to get her ready for the trip across the water to manhattan?

i think it’s the sweetest most adorable endorsement of a restaurant that michele was willing to make major life changes and overcome obstacles in order to go to the restaurant laconda verde 377 greenwich in new york.

 

i flew in the day before our luncheon and had a chance to wander around.  i walked into the shop sabon, which sells sweet smelling soaps and candles and lotions.  the proprietress said that it was a company tradition that first time customers be welcomed with a ceremonial washing of hands.  new york is brutish, dirty, sweaty, hot and sometimes overwhelming.  this is how to be welcomed in new york and it is the same experience i hoped to offer michele when she came into manhattan!

sabon has three different locations in new york and while i was at the one at 1371 6th avenue, you can find the others at sabonnyc.com

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August 8, 2012

i am (briefly) living the supermodel life in new york!

By arlynnpresser

the hotel st. james is an unassuming little boutique hotel on west forty fifth street and you could be forgiven for walking right by it, as i did.  i got there just when the doormen and the valets and the bellboys were on break.  nonetheless, it is the most magnificent fan-tabulous hotel in all manhattan!  the lobby is a commentary on ikea postmodernist minimalism and dusty plastic flowers.

the desk clerk raised an eyebrow–i had cheated on my diet in the past few days–and he assigned me the supermodel suite on the twelfth floor. how do i know it’s the supermodel suite?  it’s on the twelfth floor. and the staff very helpfully shut down the elevators. getting to my room was a great workout! and coming back downstairs to tell them that the magnetized key card didn’t work just doubled the fun!

you don’t need blush or highlighter powder at the hotel–everyone has a natural, pink glow, in part because they are true environmentalists who don’t believe in air conditioning!  coming back up to the room after getting my card fixed i figured i was ready for a refreshing shower.

this picture from the st. james website doesn’t do justice to the supermodel bathroom which is so slim and compact that only a woman with a nineteen inch waist can brush her teeth without standing in the tub. i am learning to suck in that tummy!

real estate is pricey in manhattan and i was surprised by how reasonably priced the st. james is.

a picture of somebody else’s guest room and the pool from their website. i haven’t found the pool but since i cheated on my diet maybe that’s a good thing. i might alarm chic new yorkers if i wore a bikini! and besides, i’m on a mission and shouldn’t get distracted.

in may of this year, i crossed over to staten island in the ferry to meet michele persiak, the 317th facebook friend in my friends list.  michele is an agoraphobic who rarely left the house and then only with the help of a “safe” friend.  i was very honored that i counted as a “safe” friend and we went for a walk.

michele is a wonderful twentysomething gal who is just too young to let herself be tied to the house this way.  i asked her what her major goal in life is and she said it was to become a psychiatrist and help people who have anxiety disorders.  i asked her what her “minor” goal was and she said it was to one day dine at the restaurant laconde verde which is on greenwich street in manhattan.  she had read that robert de niro owns the joint and that it was the superswankest restaurant she could imagine.  a bus ride, a ferry trip, and a cab ride away.  it might as well be on the moon.

supermodels are allowed their eccentricities. so if michele wants to bring her pet stewie, i guess i have to say “okay!”

but i promised michele that if she broke things up into little parts she could call me and i would make reservations.  she started walking a block every day, then two blocks, then a trip to micky dee’s, and then out for a meal with our mutual facebook friend carolyn quinn.  carolyn called for reservations.  and i booked my flight.  and we’ll be joined by azusa watanabe who is coming all the way from japan!

this is exactly how supermodels do it!  and it’s going to be four supermodels having the supermodel life!  if you want to join us please do!  but make sure you  work it like a supermodel!

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August 7, 2012

taking facebook face to face

By arlynnpresser

last year, i very briefly visited austria.  when i say brief, i mean four hours.  a layover in between success and certain disaster.  in my around the world trip to visit all my facebook friends i had put a lot of effort into meeting claudia klose in dortmund, germany.  i wasn’t quite sure how we knew each other.  we had two mutual friends in common–both of whom had worked with my son eastman during his very brief movie career.  i assumed claudia was a producer, makeup person, lighting director. ..  and that i just couldn’t connect face and name.

claudia and i exchanged a bunch of messages about my trip.  she was very reluctant to see me and said she didn’t like meeting new people.  especially since she said her english was very poor.  i admire people who can say that their english isn’t very good because whatever language they speak i can’t say more than “hello” “goodbye” and “where is the bathroom?”  and i can only do all three in french after two years of high school french.

nonetheless, i won her over and she agreed to meet me.  and with a precision that confirmed my sense that germans are way more organized than the rest of us, it was to be at the dortmund train station hb 7 gate tuesday november 1 at 6:30 p.m.  we agreed we would have coffee and engage in the universal activity of female friendship–shopping.

on the thirty first–the first halloween i had spent outside of the country–i was in italy visiting a facebook friend and i decided to reconfirm.  oh, let’s not call it reconfirming.  let’s call it what it was–re-re-re-re-confirming.  we had just been in touch not a week before.

i tried to send her a message and discovered i was not only defriended but blocked.  and she had defriended our two mutual friends.  i was stunned.  i wanted to change course.  get out of going to dortmund.  but changing flights, hotels, the itinerary was to expensive to change.  if i was going to meet the next friend on my trip, i had to take a train to the rome airport, fly to vienna, fly to dusseldorf and take a train into dortmund so that the next day i could fly into luten, england to meet the next friend on my facebook friendship itinerary.

i had a wonderful time in dortmund.  got laundry done.  drank beer.  saw the christmas tree (man, the germans get it going on about christmas earlier than anybody–maybe they need a stopgap holiday like halloween or thanksgiving!)

maybe it was great to just chill out.  but i thought about how i approached my new year’s resolution to meet all my facebook friends.  there were some who just didn’t want to meet me.  who wanted to keep things online.

i think it’s important for friendship to sometimes be extended beyond the virtual.  and there’s another friend of mine, from austria, who agrees with me.  andrea warmuth wrote to me with this:

I´m impressed by Arlynn´s story, so I want to tell you mine.

I´m no agoraphobic, but Arlynn is an inpiring example for me too!!!!

As she visited all of her FB-friends, I managed to visit 2 of them.
Regina Jauk and Edith Garcia Chacon.
Regina I would call my soulsister and I visited her october 2011 in Sollenau, Lower Austria
and I visited Edith this June in Kassel, Germany!

Both of them are one of sweetest and nicest persons I´ve ever met!
I´m very lucky to say that I was very welcome and always felt like home!
I´m planing to visit more of my FB-friends and hope to know them all in real life!

This is my story and I was glad to share it with you.

we became friends in january of this year when andrea reached out to me after hearing about my facebook adventure. maybe you can’t see every facebook friend this year, but what if you made a commitment to see two or five or ten? i really hope to make it to austria for more than the four hours i was in the airport waiting to go to dortmund because i would like to meet andrea!

andrea has 817 friends to meet and that’s a daunting task.  i have a similarly daunting task of figuring out how to get to new york tomorrow because i am re-connecting with a facebook friend i met earlier this year.  michele persiak is an agoraphobic who lives on staten island outside of new york city.  she wants to broaden her horizons and she will. . . and i’ll be there to witness it!

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August 3, 2012

pets, businesses, duplicates, spambots, fakes. . . sure, but they’re my friends!

By arlynnpresser

facebook has announced that 83 million–or nearly 9%–of its account holders are “illegitimate”.  this figure includes duplicate profiles, profiles that are of pets or businesses, fakes and spambots.  facebook’s only asset is information about its users which it can sell to advertisers.  this admission of a ten percent “spoilage” is particularly bad at a time when facebook is shaping up to be the single worst i.p.o. of all time.  on the first day of public trading, prices in facebook shares were set at $38 and now are under $20. in the next few weeks, insiders at facebook are allowed to sell some of their shares and, if they do, the share price will fall even further.  and who’s hurting?  the state of california had been planning on tax revenues of $1.4 to $1.9 billion dollars based on a $35 dollar per share average.

of course, my sweetheart mark zuckerberg is hurting too! he’s no longer one of the top ten tech billionaires in the world. instead, he has seen his fortune fall from $1.9 billion to a measly $1.2 billion! i still think if we ever meet, he should pick up the check!

when i made a resolution to visit, spend time with, get to know “face to face” my facebook friends, i discovered i had quite a few of these sorts of friends.  for instance, the explorer william clark, born in 1770 and deceased since 1838, is the 59th friend i visited last year. okay, i am not really friends with him–i’m friends with lanny jones, who wrote his biography “william clark and the shaping of the west”. i’m also friends with a cat, several dogs, and several “people” whose only interest in our relationship is that they have received free hewlett packard printers or androids and russian mail order brides and i can too!

when i went to new york last year, i was hoping to meet inda loop, a rap musician with whom i was facebook friends.  i didn’t know how i knew her except that our mutual facebook friend was richard “mop” furniss.  i asked him —

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August 2, 2012

seven words you can’t say on facebook. . .

By arlynnpresser

all stories about suicide, adultery, drunkenness, addiction, failure, unrequited love, bad financial planning, greed, envy, impotence and incontinence begin with the words “i have this friend”  which is code for “me”.  but really, i have this friend.

on facebook, there’s a lot of concern about privacy.  people have told me they won’t use facebook because they’re concerned enough that–regardless of the privacy settings they might place on their accounts–facebook is watching.  and using their information.  storing their information.  sharing their information.   there is even concern about potential employers asking for passwords to facebook, myspace, linkedin, and other social media accounts as a condition of employment.

remember when your cousin tagged you in a picture in the album “just another friday night in the hood”? mr. boss man will not click “like” and that’s why some states have passed social media protections so that employers are not allowed to ask for passwords. i’m sure they’ll figure out that your password is “studly” and they’re going to find this anyhow.

i live by the rule that nothing is private on facebook.  of course, there isn’t a lot a just over the border of fifty years woman is doing that’s scandalous.  like, okay, i get tagged in a photo from the album “woman’s board organizational meeting”.

but my friend.  i was starting a story about a friend and it’s really about a friend.  really.  absolutely really.  it’s about the words you can’t say on facebook.

on george carlin’s 1972 comedic album “class clown” he delivered a monologue about the seven dirty words — shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.– that you can’t say on television. the monologue and its presentation on the radio (uncensored) led to the supreme court setting new limits on the federal communications commission.

so my friend has a way of expressing herself.  and twice in the past week she expressed frustration over her email account not working and the second time over the olympics opening ceremony.  her lexicon including “kill myself”. . . and facebook took notice.  when she opened her facebook account there was a message from the team.

Hi,

A friend is concerned about your well being. Facebook has an agreement with Samaritans and we have sent them your email address so they can contact you within 24 hours. You can speak to them in confidence. You can find out more about Samaritans atwww.samaritans.org.They can also be reached by email at jo@samaritans.org or by phone. In the UK dial 08457 90 90 90 or in the Republic of Ireland dial 1850 60 90 90.Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Julio
User Operations
Facebook

then my friend was required to click to reach her message box.
I have read the message above
Samaritans Home Page
Samaritans provides confidential emotional support 24/7 to those experiencing despair, distress or suicidal feelings.
the friend who expressed concern is mr. algorithm.  the same mr. algorithm that seems to know that i want to see ads for wrinkle cream and ways to get rid of belly fat.  when i open my facebook account, the ads are on the margins, reminding me of my mortality.
so my friend was upset when her email account wasn’t working and who wasn’t as impressed with the olympics opening ceremony as director danny boyle would have liked her to be.  and we both learned that the seven words you can’t use on facebook unless you want the good samaritans of the u.k. or the u.s. to contact you.  sometimes you’ll have to add the word “myself’.  julio from the facebook team will be sending you a note of concern.
kill, shoot, off, hang, seppuku, do. . . in.

maxwell smart had a cool phone in his shoe in the 1960s series “maxwell smart”. . . but you carry surveillance equipment with you all the time. let’s face it, your phone allows the government to track your location, your spending habits, your interests, and your habits. smart? yeah, your phone is smart!

my friend’s experience was pretty creepy.  but have you had an experience with this?
and just in case this catches you at a bad moment, the samaritans really are here to help.  their homepage is http://www.samaritans.org/

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July 29, 2012

tell the investment world to zuck off!

By arlynnpresser

i am very grateful to facebook.  if you have an account, you are grateful too.  even if you don’t say so.  facebook is how you keep up with your family and friends–yeah, right, but it’s also where you hang out, play farmville, castleville and diamond dash, post pictures of your friends lying on a couch passed out with a bottle of jim beam, and where you play the next flashmob coup d’etat of your home country.  facebook is a party room in which you are always the v.i.p.  facebook is grateful to you because you give the company its biggest asset:  the most comprehensive user database in existence.  it’s an n.r.a. mailing list on steroids.

in visiting my facebook friends, i have used planes, trains, and automobiles. when you get a flat tire, take it off the car and pour soapy water on it. wherever you see bubbles is where you have a leak! i am working out the details on fixing this one!

facebook was founded in mark zuckerberg’s harvard dorm room in 2004.  i joined up in 2007, mostly so i could troll through my sons’ friends lists in order to ascertain whether they were being targeted by predators.  i got addicted.  i then in 2011 i decided to make the facebook experience a real one–and resolved to visit each of my facebook friends in person.

facebook went public this spring and was initially offered at $38 per share.  this past friday, facebook closed at slightly under $23.  investors are dumping the stock, in part because facebook faces a challenge in servicing users who have iphones, android and tablets.  somehow i think the zuckerberg team will figure this one out.

christian bertelsen–chief investment dude at the global financial private capital company–calls facebook a “tomorrow stock” and he’s right.  facebook is nothing to invest in if you are going to check out the stock price every day, every hour, every minute.  which means that the exact sort of person who uses facebook–and updates their status every day, every hour, every minute–is exactly the wrong candidate to be a facebook shareholder.

mark, i believe in you. actually, i believe in the incredible database that you’ve accumulated which allows companies to target advertising with such precision. which is why i keep seeing ads on my page about how to get rid of wrinkles and belly fat. p.s. thank you and facebook friend tony tyner for the birthday wishes!

 

so i say buy facebook stock.  buy lots of it.  and then don’t check for updated status.  give it three years, which on a facebook timeline is like eternity.  amazon went through a similar bust-o and folks were talking about it being “just a bookstore” on the internet–now amazon is retailer to the world.

mark zuckerberg has the best incentive to make facebook work. he was worth $19.1 billion on the day of the i.p.o. and now you’re worth a paltry $11.9 billion (after selling off 30 million shares to raise money to feed the i.r.s.).  it’s hardly enough money to live on.

mark, you can send me diamonds out of your petty cash drawer! i don’t think you’re motivated by the money–as you have said, “we don’t build services to make money, we make money so we can build better services.”

 

so we gotta ask:

 

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July 27, 2012

pardon me while i exit the blogosphere —

By arlynnpresser

just for a moment!  i have made a commitment to do some other writing and so that’s what i’m going to do.  a girl’s gotta work and today’s job is to organize a year’s worth of facebook friendship blogs into some sort of sense.

casey’s flyboy was the first book i ever wrote. it was about an anthropologist in alaska who falls in love with a pilot. the editor who called to say she wanted to buy it asked me how long i had lived in alaska. i confessed i had never even been to the state. thanks to facebook i have been to nome, kotsebue, anchorage and homer, alaska.

 

the scariest and most daunting distance in writing a book is from the blank page to the first sentence.   i’m a little nervous.  but while i’m biting my fingernails, i wanted to share with you a story written by my facebook friend 294 molly parshall.  i met her at her home in coldwater, michigan because she wanted to understand how i had overcome my fears and phobias to get out there and meet facebook friends.  she wanted some of that for herself.  when i first met her, she couldn’t come out onto the front porch of her own house to talk to me.  now. . . well, let her tell it the way she wants to:

 

i haven’t eliminated panic attacks or the powerful desire to shut the door and make the world go away. in fact, today i had to take two ativan and sit in the parking lot of the local hospital so that i could dash into the emergency room if the ativan didn’t make it all better. it must have worked because after twenty minutes i was reading the august issue of allure magazine and pondering whether i’m too old for purple mascara.

so, with a warm welcome to guest blogger and beautiful friend molly parshall:

 

My name is Molly I am 27 years old and I live in a small town in Lower Michigan. For the past 8 years I have struggled with agoraphobia. I have missed out on countless trips with my family, family functions, holidays, you name it I missed it. My sister came to me last Christmas and told me she was getting married and she really wanted me to attend her wedding. I felt doomed that I would never be able to make it to her wedding. I was scared and upset that she too would be disappointed by me and the agoraphobia would again win. The longer I sat watching the world go by around me the more I wanted to get out of the house. So one day I got a wild hair and decided enough was enough and I set off on my very first journey. I didn’t tell anyone where we were going or when we would be back. I am sure they assumed our trip would be short lived and back home within a few minutes because that is all I was able to do. Oh how wrong they were… As we headed down the road both my husband and son not knowing what I had planned to do, I navigated them down the side streets of our little town, Out on the back roads we went (avoiding as much traffic as possible) We usually take the country roads if possible. I didn’t get too far before I started to feel anxious and then the tears started flowing, I held my husband’s hands and with tears in my eyes I told him, “I am scared… I want to go home” He asked if I wanted him to turn around to which I replied “No, I will be ok” “I am not turning back” He said ok just let me know if you need me to turn around. My son in the back seat kept telling me I was ok. After a ways down a few different roads they finally realized that I was making the trip out to see My in-laws who live 13.4 Miles from my house (22 minutes by car if you take the main roads) but the route I had to take made it a 13.7 mile trip (31 minutes by car) Half way to their house tears of joy came over me and I was so proud of myself.. My son kept saying you’re doing it Mommy… You’re doing it… I am so proud of you!! By the time I got on the final road before their place, Sheer panic had fully set in… I wanted to turn back but knew if I could push through the anxiety just a few more minutes I would be at their house and that I did! I made it with no problems. I was able to stay at their house for over an hour and a half with no problems what so ever… I surprised myself at how good I did. I had accomplished what I set out to do and if that meant just pushing through the anxiety with no help of medication etc. I did it. I didn’t know that by doing that I had opened up the road to adventure. I haven’t stopped since then. I have visited my Grandma grave on Mother’s Day (haven’t been there in years) went to my sisters, My in-laws for dinner (again) Visited my friend and her family, went out to a friend’s farm for my son to see their horses and mules, Visited Grandma J among other people. I even made it to the dentist just recently I didn’t take any medication to do my travels EXCEPT the dentist which me meds didn’t kick in until after I left my appointment. I have been taking my son every day to the park program and picking him up (except on Fridays cause I don’t have a license) I guess in the simplest terms the only reason I am getting out and enjoying life once again is I pushed myself, I pushed myself through the fear, anxiety, and unknown. I knew deep down that I would be ok. The dentist appointment seemed to be the hardest adventure yet because I hate going to the dentist… But I sure did have the best motivate ever in the form of an 8 year old blue eyed boy who told me as I sat in the house hyperventilating in fear… You know Mommy… You don’t have to be scare, I heard on TV you have to face your fears, so come on well face that fear together… How could I refuse? If my 8 year old son could do it, so could I! So I am one step closer to attending my sister’s wedding, she is going to get her wish; her only sister is going to attend her wedding!!

I have great faith that anyone can accomplish what I did; all they need are a few simple things.
1.) The want
2.) The support of loved ones
3.) Courage to try it
4.) Persistence to push through it!

I am not saying it was easy by any means it was not easy when I started out and I still have Pajama days where I really don’t want to leave my house but I still try and make it a point to leave everyday even if it’s for a short trip out! I know I still have a long road of recovery ahead of me but I will make it. I have a great network of friends on Facebook who are agoraphobic to and they seem to give me a bit of reassurance that I can do it, I do it for them, my family & my friends… But most of all Myself!!

Molly Parshall

 

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