-These letters were written and sent to agoraphobics
by Dr Claire Weekes M.B.E. M.B. D.Sc. M.R.A.C.P.
SWAG (Aust) Inc are reproducing them for your interest.
15-25

15- Dear Readers, When I asked in the questionnaire (part of a survey made by myself of agoraphobia sufferers in England in 1972) if you had any suggestions about further help needed, so many said, "Although Dr. Weekes has said all that there is to be said on the subject, we just want her to keep talking. We need constant encouragement and explanation."
Those who live alone were especially anxious to keep in touch. I can understand your believing I have written all there is to be said on the subject, because when I re-read the book I thought, "However did I manage to say so much?" and yet, I would not remove one paragraph. An Australian editor after reading the proofs said, "I understand about this now, I simply couldn't have believed that there was so much to it.!" I know I repeated much of it, but for years I have repeated the same explanation and advice again and again in my consulting room and by the bedside. It is essential to do so; so don't think you are being weak, or foolish, if you want to hear explanation and encouragement repeated almost ad nausium.
Western Union cable from California: "I read your book, listened to your tapes, I am a new man. I fly small aircraft and it's great to be alive again."
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

16 -Dear Readers, There must be many more who will need encouragement and guidance, despite my having said so much in books, tapes, and journals I hope you have been able to reduce all those words I have bombarded you with, down to a few simple words, even to one word. If you would ask me what, of all I have taught you, you should remember, I would answer, "Remember to try to accept your feelings and thoughts, WILLINGLY". Willingly face the day, willingly take what comes and especially willingly (as willingly as you can manage, to begin with) the symptoms you dislike so much - remember that word, 'willingly'!
I have talked to you now about every aspect of agoraphobia, it is difficult to find one aspect I have not already discussed with you. However, I have been thinking that some of you may have experiences, and may be deterred by, the feeling of having lost the years spent in 'illness'. These years have gone by with your concentrating so much on yourself and your problem that you have not fully lived in the outside world, (I know that is putting it mildly for some of you) so that those years indeed seem lost, with a blank space between the 'you' that use to be well and the present 'you'. Actually, you have learned a great deal during those apparent lost years. You've learnt to be compassionate, how to understand other people, and I hope now to help others.
My Good Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

17 Dear Readers, It may seem to you as if your ordinary life came to an abrupt end when you first became aware of your agoraphobia, and to bridge that gap between then and now, may seem to be an impossibility. You can't bridge that by looking back, you can bridge it only by going quietly forward until the feeling of normality that recovery gradually brings, melts the gap and you find yourself shaking hands with the real 'you' again. If some of you are still battling and haven't made the progress you think you should have made, this is usually because you haven't practised the way I have taught you, or conditions at home have been especially discouraging, or you have been physically ill. I know some of you have been physically ill and have carried on courageously in spite of this. I do congratulate you! So I want to encourage all of you to start again, to continue the good work, if I can't be with you, don't let that discourage you. As I have said earlier, I think of you all struggling away, such brave people, so don't let me down by dropping out of the race.
My Good Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

18- Dear Readers, These letters are to help us keep in contact with each other. I promise that if you carry out my teaching the right way in spite of failures in the past, you can recover. However disappointed or discouraged you may be, start practising again willingly. I especially want to encourage those of you who have done well and thought that they were over the hurdles and who are now in a setback. This happens to so many and it is especially upsetting. Nothing you have learnt has been lost but you must accept the setback willingly and don't whip yourself because you have slipped from the path, after so much success, or exhaust yourself wondering, "How could it have happened to ME! ? You even may be the main stay of a group and feel the setback a special calamity. Actually, it will help you revise your knowledge and how to come out of it and it may even help you be more patient with others, who are stuck in a rut. It will refresh your mind again, maybe even humble you a little and we are all better for a touch of humbling now and then.
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

19-Dear Readers, From a patient, "I can believer in Dr. Weekes' method for ordinary daily routine matters. But it's hard on special occasions to think at all, let alone remember what Dr. Weekes says." But my teaching shows you a way through even this moment of apparent in-ability to think. The answer is simple: don't think ! let go and don't think. Its not what you don't think but what you do think that upsets you. So as long as you don't think, you have nothing to fear. The truth is that you do think, even at the very moment you think you can't think, "This is it! Now I really will die - collapse -rush out - or something!" Oh yes, you do think. However, I understand exactly what this woman means. She means that it is moments when she tenses herself into a state of super- panic that she seems to stand paralysed before it, and my teaching then seems beyond her reach. this surely happens to most of you at some time, but remember it has happened to those of you who are cured and have recovered. So let this woman take heart! what others have done she (and you) can do.
At such a moment she must be willing TO DO NOTHING. Her feelings will gradually calm if she is prepared to stay "paralysed' and do nothing about it. She can be reassured that no one can stay in a state of "thought paralysis" for long. Gradually the body takes over and marches on despite oneself. The body must resume its functioning. No one can maintain that flashing moment of nothingness indefinitely - eyes begin to see - ears begin to hear - and legs to move again. Let the moment pass and wait for your body to reassert itself. Let your body loosen and think nothing, relax your body, do this willingly. Actually applying my teaching because you are getting close to acceptance as one could expect, during such a crisis at that particular time.
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

20 -Dear Readers, In answer to the questions, "Do you still have setbacks?" a reader wrote, "I did not answer the last questionnaire because things were going so well, I thought I would best not tempt providence. I still have a fear of admitting to anyone that I feel better because something invariably goes wrong if I do ". How human! Her layer of confidence is so newly acquired, is so thin, it cracks under the slightest strain. Yet this is part of recovery. Any strain during early stages of recovery must seem especially designed by 'Jimmy the Jinx' to thwart one's efforts. Actually, the spanners that are thrown into the works are the strains and stresses of ordinary living and would come whether you were suffering from agoraphobia or not; they only seem to come along at the wrong time because the feeling of recovery is new, so nebulous, so precious you cannot bear the thought of having it disturbed at that particular time.
Very few people have the way kept clear for recovery; the signal "Full steam ahead!" is more likely to be "Cyclone coming! batten down the hatches!". In spite of the threatened cyclone, have the courage to admit you are feeling well when you do feel well. It cheers those around you and convinces them that you are not hugging your phobia. Even the kindness and most considerate member of the family may have this suspicion at the back of his mind. A few hours of cheerful hope from you is a respite for the family. But explain that there may be more 'downs' to come. Prepared in this way, the downs do not seem quite so low and you get more confidence with which to face them; because of having the courage to admit and enjoy the good spells helps you feel more on even par with others.
Another reader wrote, "I now lead a more normal life and have had a child. I still get a thrill from shopping without panic, even though I've been cured for more than two years. I'm not sorry that I went through what seemed to be years of torture, for I think I am a more understanding and tolerant person because of it. I had always been nervous previously and got odd bouts of depression occasionally. Now I can cope fairly well even with a bout of depression, the same as anyone else.
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

21- Dear Readers, A word of encouragement to the woman who worked 30 years as secretary and was made redundant when her firm moved to another county. She said, "The terror of trying for new jobs had an adverse effect on me. I'm in a third job now, but a few years ago I couldn't' have ever gone for an interview. I am beginning to settle down at last but still have occasional panics. I am hoping that when winter is over and the dark days are gone, I will once more start to make progress.
Another woman wrote, "Being alone does not help". It certainly does not. Of all those who reads these journals, those who fight their battles alone, most deserve our encouragement. And by "those who live alone" I include those who live with an unsympathetic family or struggle to look after a large family, with exhaustion their daily companion, I also include those who live in isolated places with few transport facilities to encourage then to venture far from home. Reports from such people, even of the little they have managed to do, make especially welcome reading.
A fellow sufferer in Queensland deserves special congratulations because he is working on his own so far away. He says he has made some progress and has been working from the journals alone for 6 months Good Luck!
My Best Wishes CLAIRE WEEKES

22- Dear Readers, A woman wrote, "I would like to know more about how to practise sitting quietly in public; I still can't grasp the meaning of floating. If I went queer and panicky at a social meeting how could I cope?" When I say "Let your body flop, when you feel panic " I don't mean that you do it so well that you slide off your seat with a loud thud. I mean to flop inside yourself. Let your body slump a little in the seat. Just loosen that tight hold you are keeping on your abdominal muscles. It is these muscles, your so called 'tummy muscles' that you squeeze with a vice-like grip. Sit in your chair and practise now. Think of being in the front row of a social gathering with no easy escape, and notice how your abdominal muscles almost immediately stiffen as you get that sinking feeling in your tummy. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly and as you do so, practise releasing your abdominal muscles. It helps if you feel as if your chest is sinking down into your abdomen and your whole body sinking through the chair. It's quite a trick, see if you can do it! This is the flopping that takes the edge off panic. As far as your appearance goes, the most anyone might notice would be a slight drooping of your shoulders. If you practise 'inside flopping' while you panic, the panic will not seem so searing. Loosen that tight 'nerve strings'. This is not my method, it is nature's method, remember it. It cannot fail if you follow it correctly, so practise, practise.
My Best Wishes CLAIRE WEEKES

23- Dear Readers, A woman of 62 has a special phobia. So that she will recognise herself without my mentioning the phobia, let me add that she is the only woman in a family of four boys. I want to assure this woman that I have treated quite a number of patients with her particular fear, but none has ever done what they and she, fear they will do. She fears also she may go hysterical in the street. The last thing you want to do is draw attention to yourself; this is why you fear that you might. Your very fear of your phobia is your defence. It acts as a powerful brake, working for you. You are unaware of this because of the feeling of almost compulsive power behind the thought. BUT ACTION IS DIFFERENT FROM THOUGHT. It is not so easy to pass from fearful thought to dreaded action, as you suppose.
If you would like to prove this, go out into the street now and try and make yourself do the thing you shrink from doing. You shrink from the very thought of it. How much more would your true self shrink from actually doing it when you are out in the street! THOUGHT ALONE IS BLUFFING YOU. So, take heart. Think the thought. It will come for some time yet. But when it comes, practise taking a breath and as you breath out, let the thought slip by; release it. IT IS ONLY A THOUGHT. It can have only the significance you give it. Your phobia is no more than a habit of thought, kept alive by fear.
If you practise accepting the thought, breathing out while you release it, it will gradually build up a confidence within yourself which you will actually feel as an inner strength. This will support you throngh your fear. YOU ARE NOT GOING MAD. THERE IS NOTHING PECULIAR ABOUT YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID IN THIS WAY. I wish to stress that even if a fear like yours is a strong thought it is still not madness, has nothing to do with madness. It is still only an obsessive thought kept alive by fear and habit.
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

24-Dear Readers, A reader of the journal wrote, "It gives me great confidence to know that I am not unique and that some do understand all the frightening feelings that plague a person with Agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is always a problem for families and friends, and although I have been lucky with an understanding family, there are other people who make one feel ashamed of one's weaknesses. For many years I have felt guilt, a poor fish etc., and although I am so much better I can't quite rid myself of these feelings." Now when a person says that for many years she has felt guilty and can't rid herself of this feeling, she should understand that few people, who have suffered as she has, can rid themselves of a feeling of guilt. It is as if they are trying to find a switch to stop the guilty feeling from coming. We can't easily switch off a feeling we have had for a long time, especially one that has been drilled into us by conventional thinking. Their guilt has been conditioned by the ignorance of people who simply do not understand. There previously has been so much silly talk about nerves and nervous illness, especially in articles in newspapers and magazine, that guilt is encouraged.
Agoraphobia should not make the person feel guilty but I know how difficult it is for him to be convinced of this. However there is a way to gradually lose the feeling of undeserved guilt. The sufferer puts beside the feeling of guilt, another 'different' feeling. A young girl who was going through a very gruelling time, had recovered from agoraphobia, and is studying to become a Social Worker. She had just written "How glad I am to know what it is all about ! I can go up to a patient now, and from my own experience speak his language and what is more, he would know that I understood ! My suffering was a privilege !" So, beside any feeling of guilt, put a feeling of privilege. Not one of you need worry about being a 'weakling' etc.. Put the opposite thought beside the thought of guilt and occasionally refer to it, this will not be easy for those of you who are struggling, but it is possible! In time the feeling of guilt will be replaced by a feeling of pride in knowing that you understand a condition that so few understand.
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

25-Dear Readers, You will progress better, meeting once a week in a coffee house. It is you yourself, you are taking with you, it is not the distance or the area. Rethinking and training to learn to go with it, and not to withdraw from it, to function with it, this is the big thing. To take what comes and function with it, there is a little innercore of utter acceptance that cures. It is not the tight grim approach, " All right, I'll do it, I'll do it". That keeps the sensitisation there, relax to your utmost, this is the floating I talk about, relaxation with a forward movement, doing anything in a totally relaxed way, it is encouraging to do this together, as well as at home alone. You can get through and be rid of those panics, I can promise you that.
My Best Wishes, CLAIRE WEEKES

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