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Some panic disorders go hand-in-hand with another disorder, called agoraphobia . In ancient Greece, the agora was a large, open area where people gathered. So, agoraphobia is the fear of open or public places. Because people with panic disorder fear having an attack, they sometimes stay inside more and more. About a third of the people with panic disorder develop agoraphobia and become afraid to leave their homes. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder So far, we’ve talked about anxieties people have when there is nothing to be afraid of. But our last kind of anxiety disorder is quite different. The fears of people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are very real. During World War I (1914–1918), doctors noticed that some soldiers suffered from what they called “shell shock.” It
Veterans of World War I, like these wounded Belgian soldiers, were found to have an
illness called “battle fatigue.” We now call this PTSD.
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