Articles From The Current Issue

 

The Invisable Disability

By Thandi Vela

Ron Morton,Counsellor, Centennial College Centre for Students with Disabilities. 

Alen Heric might have been a doctor if he was blind instead of social phobic. His social phobia was so extreme throughout high school that he hardly went to school and never sought help because he didn’t know it was a disability.

“I was terrified to go to school,” Heric said. “Terrified of having to talk to the other students, the teacher, to walk in the class.”
Despite how severe his social anxiety was, Heric dealt with it alone, not taking advantage of the accommodations schools have for students with disabilities because he didn’t see it as a disability like blindness.

“When someone has a disability it’s not something they have control over,” Ron Morton, a consultant at Centennial College’Centre for Students with Disabilities says. “Sometimes people don’t understand, especially with invisible disabilities.

“It’s not a choice they have. It’s a blinding, pervasive type of fear this is what makes it a disorder.”

Because people can’t detect social phobia from outward appearance, it’s hard to see that it can be as debilitating as any other disability like deafness.  As a result, people might think that you could just make a social phobic person socialize, Morton says. Or in Simpson’s case, just make them come to school.

“You can’t just say take away a blind person’s cane and make them walk,” Morton says.

Morton has dealt with social phobic students that couldn’t go to class and there are arrangements that can be made. One student that he helped ended up being the top of his class after Morton arranged for him to correspond with his teachers electronically and over the phone.
While there are ways to avoid social interaction in school, sometimes social phobic people are confronted in other settings.

Joseph Thomas is a 23-year-old schizophrenic who often talks to people he doesn’t know in public. He says his condition makes him extremely eccentric and he could walk up to any person on the street, in the subway or anywhere else.

Heric says if he were confronted by a stranger he’d totally ignore them in fear.

For the most part, people have entertained Thomas’s conversation but he says he gets upset when people react like how Heric or any other social phobic might. 

“I have a personality,” Thomas says. “Sometimes people can’t take that.

“But you don’t have to be rude by ignoring me like I’m crazy.”

If a social phobic person is confronted with a situation where someone who may be mentally ill or anyone else is trying to talk to them, Morton says they should communicate to avoid hard feelings.

He says to explain to them that you feel uncomfortable because of your illness and of course because of the nature of social phobia, maybe write a note if you’re uncomfortable saying it. 

So while it is not okay to try to force a social phobic person to communicate, social phobic people can also minimize the emotional damage of people around them. 
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I Feel So Restricted That I May Not Make It To 20...

By Brooke Reid

Jordan Mercier, 19, struggles with claustrophobia. He feels like he's missing out on a normal teenage experience. 

If it’s not bad enough for teenagers to struggle through awkward situations and raging hormones, all while striving for independence, try adding claustrophobia in to the mix.

Take Lisa Schinina for example. She’s 16 and claustrophobic. When Schinina was about 13 or 14, she says she felt very uncomfortable in confined places like in elevators or even in the back seat of her family car. Since then, her situation has worsened.    

“I’ll always take the stairs over the elevator no matter how many floors the building has. I absolutely will not go in an elevator,” said Schinina, clenching her fists and pursing her lips just at the very thought of having to go in one.

Now, in Grade 10, Schinina is faced with a more difficult situation. Now she has she been clinically diagnosed as a claustrophobic, she feels that she might be missing out on many social opportunities - like parties - that teenagers without claustrophobia will get to experience.

But make no mistake, these parties are not those “pop and chip” parties that teens were used to having in grade school. Instead, these youngsters are introduced to a world of drugs, alcohol, sex, cliques and materialism.

“In some places, like malls and parties, claustrophobics are likely to experience anxiety symptoms,” said Michele Boivin, a psychologist at the Anxiety Treatment and Research Centre, at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton. 

“In more severe cases of claustrophobia, a patient could feel anxiety while sitting in the back seat of a two door car, in a helmet, a sauna, a small bathroom or even while taking a shower.”

Schinina says that showers and helmets do not bother her so much, but she cannot tolerate busy malls, small classrooms, and parties, especially in basements.

“I feel embarrassed sometimes that I’ve have to leave a party, or sometimes even school, because I feel like I might freak out or I can’t breathe or something,” said Schinina. “The feeling is hard to explain.”

Jordan Mercier, 19, can relate to Schinina on many levels.

Mercier was also diagnosed with claustrophobia in his early teens and has had a difficult time dealing with it as well. Now Mercier is in his second year at Loyalist College in Belleville.

“I love hockey,” said Mercier. “It’s my favourite sport. But sometimes I feel panicked when I’m in the small dressing rooms before or after a game.”

It’s embarrassing and hard to have to explain to his teammates that he has to leave unexpectedly, he said. Mercier wishes that his anxiety disorder did not control his life so much.

“The scariest part for me is the feeling that I can’t breathe,” Mercier said. “And the worst part is that it can happen at any time. At a bar or even on the bus going to school. It sucks.”

The fear of suffocation is directly intertwined with claustrophobia.

“Claustrophobics commonly report feelings of suffocation and not being able to get enough air,” said Boivin. “Some people think that breathing into a paper bag, like they see in the movies might help, but this is a common misconception.”

Boivin had a helpful tip to offer teens dealing with claustrophobia.

“If [a teenager] is experiencing anxiety in a particular situation and they want to avoid having a panic attack, they need to keep reminding themselves that anxiety is temporary and it will eventually go away on its own,” Boivin said.

But for some claustrophobics, this technique is easier said than done.

“Sometimes I try talking myself out of situations that might cause me to freak out, like in elevators or in small classrooms,” Schinina said. “But it only works sometimes and other times I just can’t control it at all.”

More long term treatment is available to try to overcome claustrophobia and many medical professionals, including Boivin, say that it is often very successful. However, success rates are based on the individual. Visit www.anxietytreatment.ca for more information.