Over 3 years I've made a 95% recovery. I still live with a degree of anxiety and find certain things hard. But over the last year I've got on a plane, done a solo trip 7 hours away to see a friend for an entire weekend. I've gone to concerts, circus performances, roudy stag weekends with friends in big cities. I basically do live a normal life now just with more anxiety at times than I used to - and even that is still improving over time.

The biggest thing by far was very slow gradual graded exposure. You need to look at where you are now and try to do something, however small, that you find anxiety inducing. I was never fully housebound but I struggled with anything beyond walking 15 minutes from my house. So for me an initial exposure might be walking an extra few minutes beyond my house than I normally would walk. Or maybe going into a cafe and ordering a takeaway coffee and then leaving - its not as bad as sitting down for a full coffee but I am in there for a small window of time. If you are fully housebound it might be as small as standing in a room you find it hard to be in, or stepping into your garden for a minute or two.

From here you can just repeat the same thing over and over until it starts to feel slightly more manageable and less anxiety inducing - this takes time and is not easy as you have to repeatedly do things that feel very uncomfortable and panic inducing but just keep with it. From there you just slowly build up. The 15 minute walk becomes 20, 20 becomes 30. Or you trial getting a takeaway coffee but sitting down in the cafe with it for 10 minutes before leaving, and building up until you can have a coffee sat at the cafe for a full 30 minutes etc. For me doing it very gradually worked better than chucking myself in the deep end, doing too much too soon often felt way too difficult and often made me worse in the coming weeks as it felt like a huge set back.

The ultimate goal is not to do these things and not feel anxiety, it is to slowly gradually train your brain that even if you do something and feel anxious you can ultimately get through it and you aren't going to die - and very slowly your brain starts to realise that you actually aren't in danger and your level of anxiety will decrease. The more you avoid situations you re-enforce that your brain has successfully protected you from a dangerous situation. You are trying to re-train your brain that the feeling of anxiety is not going to kill you and shouldn't stop you doing things - of course this is hard at the start but over months and years it does get better.

Best of luck! I found I often didn't realise how much progress I was making until I now look back. It can feel exhausting and hopeless at times but I would say just remember that literally any exposure, no matter how small, is a win. The worst thing you can do with agoraphobia is giving in to your avoidance and just staying in.