Agoraphobia - empty space horror...or shopping?

A strange coincidence today (is there such a thing as a non-strange concidence? Is "strange coincidence" tautological? Discuss). I've spoken to a young lady who's a recovering alcoholic - one of the side-effects was depression and panic attacks, particularly associated with being outdoors. I have also learned today, quite by chance, that agoraphobia is a term used to described someone who fears entering shops. It says so on NHS Direct, and if the NHS says so, it must be so.

As someone who regularly crumbles into a heap of blubbering mush (not unlike this blog) at the thought of shopping, does that make me an agoraphobe? I often attribute my hatred of shopping with being in a crowded place, which I would describe as claustrophobic. I also fear being brutally attacked by OAPs. Have you noticed how they creep up behind you while you're studying the shop shelf, head-to-toe in tweed camouflage and trailing armoured tartan shopping trolleys, then bundle you out of the way with a deft swipe of an AK-47 walking stick? No? Oh.

Any doctors reading this? Can anyone help? Or am I an OAPhobe? An OAPagoraclaustrophobe? Throw in some of those horrible incy-wincys and I could be an arachno-OAP-agoraclaustrphobe. Beats having man-flu anyway.

When I was a wee reporter I remember doing a feature on the dangers of drug dependency. Stay with me, this is related. I can't remember how we found this guy. He lived in Orrell, near Wigan. He was talking about getting addicted to valium, temazepam, diazepam and parmesan. Then he said something which completely turned the whole feature on its head. He said, "I haven't left the house for 16 years."

His descent into drug and cheese-fuelled madness had turned him into an agoraphobe. There was an early 1990s film called Copycat, one of the many Silence of the Lambs clones at the time, where Sigourney Weaver played an agoraphobic ex-serial killer criminal profiler (you know the type). She couldn't even stand at the front door of her flat without becoming a quivering wreck. This guy hadn't opened his front door for 16 years. He couldn't go near an open window. Other people did errands for him. Then he told me that he had been seeing a shrink, and that last week he had stood at the front door, with the door open, for the first time in years. Next week it was planned that he was going to walk to his garden gate.

I remember going, photographer in tow, and this throng of people all standing round while this guy, looking for all the world like he was walking a tightrope, swayed and moaned and cursed the whole six yards to his garden gate.

So you will excuse me, NHS Direct, if I tell you that agoraphobia has nothing to do with a fear of shopping. There's a guy in Orrell who can tell you what it really is.

We need a new word or phrase for "shopping horror." Mine's "Trafford Centre" followed closely by "Bangor High Street".