Singer-Songwriter Reveals Bout With Agoraphobia and ‘Really Bad Anxiety’

Daniel Thrasher is opening up about how isolation led to anxiety and agoraphobia. The singer-songwriter says he developed the conditions while living alone and being forced to stay inside when the world shut down in 2020.

According to the National Cancer Institute, agoraphobia is defined as an intense fear of being in open places or in situations where it may be hard to escape, or where help may not be available. People with agoraphobia are usually very anxious about having a panic attack in a public place.

When asked by an interviewer if he’s an introvert who isolates often, he replied honestly. “Nowadays, I’m an introvert. I lived in an apartment complex in Hollywood with a few roommates and then started making money on YouTube. I was like, ‘I’m gonna get a three story townhouse to myself and just isolate.’ And I got it in a part of town where it’s kind of far away. And I was researching and I was Googling, literally, isolation and creativity…because so many people are afraid to be bored now and you have to let yourself be bored because that’s where insane ideas come,” he said.

He continued: “That’s why so many insane ideas are in the shower. It’s because you’re not on your phone. But now, people are on their phones. They’ve got a waterproof phone and the freakin’ ring thing that they scroll through. You have to be bored, in order to be creative, I think.”

When asked where the original idea of being in isolation started, he said: “Being away from my roommates,” with a laugh. “I think more so, it’s the urge to be able to scream without worrying about noise. And so, I got a townhouse that was detached – I was lucky enough to be able to get one – and I got one of those and I moved there in February in 2020 a month before [the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine] – and then I was forced to. Because I picked a location that was so far away, I developed agoraphobia and got real bad anxiety. It was a lot but I got out of it.”