I've Developed Agoraphobia During My Years As An Immigrant

I was born and raised in a very crowded metropolis.  I was used to be crowded around by people wherever I went.  The typical class size of any grade I attended in my native country was 70 students.  But over time, I'd developed an anxiety condition that I didn't want to go to any concert or theme parks that had huge crowds.  I hadn't gone to the theater to watch a movie for 4 years.  I just feel very anxious around crowds.  I don't remember when exactly I started to have such phobia.  It was a gradual and subtle development until one day I felt as if I was going to pass out, and that my heart would stop when I was in a crowded concert at the Hollywood Bowl.  Today, I still remember the horrible experience when I had to walk through this very crowded and congested tunnel in Hollywood Bowl to exit to the parking lot.  I felt my journey to my car was like forever,  as if my heart was just going to die on me, and I would just fall and be trampled on before I could make it out. Since then, I've been having the same panic attack when I'm in a crowded place. 

Sometimes I wonder if I hadn't moved to the USA, would I have developed Agoraphobia?  I had never seen so many mass shootings back in my native country.  I don't think there had been any mass shooting during my parents' life time thus far.  I'm not mentioning my grandparents because they experienced more than mass shooting, they experienced massacres and bombings.  But my parents were peace time babies, and I was born in the prosperous time when my parents' generation were full of hope and optimism, and I grew up in a very cuddled and happy childhood, with zero drama, like the kind of childhood common in the 1950s in the USA.  I never thought I would ever become one of those who suffer from a phobia.   But how can I not when for years, I've been living in a country where everyday, there are people  killed by gun violence, and where mass shooting is such a frequent fare that I'm not even sure if I will  be here typing tomorrow night or ever again.  

I don't know since when my prospect about my life is so uncertain as to whether I will come out alive after getting my coffee at Starbucks.  I know, many of my American friends have been telling me that I should just live life without thinking so much of the bad news, and how I can conquer my anxiety by thinking of the statistics.  Statistics is actually what I try to not think about, because back in my native country, the chance of me being injured or killed in a mass shooting or any shooting is absolutely zero.  Now  I'm one in how many people, who can actually be killed in gun violence?  The fact that the statistics shows I have drastically increased my odds to be shot in America, isn't assuring.  

Tonight, as I was just working over time from home, I saw the Las Vegas shooting on my news alert.  Who knows why the gunman in Las Vegas killed, he could be just mad because he realized he had no money to retire, and social security benefit wasn't much. This is yet another senseless shooting, and I'm supposed to feel as if this is even normal,  and it's just part of life?  Being an American doesn't make this phobia goes away. In fact, having Agoraphobia made me realize I was becoming an American and I can never move back to my crowded native metropolis ever again.  The fact that I want my right to own a gun even though I feel quite disturbed by America's plight of gun violence, just shows that I'm no longer like my gun-fearing,  pro gun control family back home.  America had changed me from someone who once was so fond of my absolute gun-controlling native country to someone who supports America's 2nd amendment.  This was what made me realize that it was time for me to get my citizenship.   Now I better dial face-time with my mom back home, it's one of those times when I have to tell my mom, "Mom ,don't worry, I'm still alive despite what you see on the news. No, mom, the shooting isn't near my town in the USA, it's not even in the same state."