The truth? Worry happens.
Most people worry experience anxiety in a variety of forms, for a variety of reasons in their lives. In reality, that’s perfectly normal. Sometimes worry is warranted. Often, certain circumstances demand a little “fight or flight.”
Even significant moments and life transitions can create periods of situational anxiety that inspire us to prepare well or perform our best. You, no doubt, know the nervous sense of unpreparedness that comes with new parenthood. Or the sliver of fright that assails you before you step up to a podium.
Anxiety disorders, however, are something more pervasive and disruptive to your everyday life. Mental alarm bells of anxiety ring constantly or unnecessarily, making routines and relationships difficult to manage. Anxiety becomes distracting and consuming, not the helpful or productive help it is meant to be.
If you are in this situation, you may need relief and assistance managing your fear and worry.
Exploring Anxiety Types and Symptoms
For a more complete picture of what you might be dealing with, there are some key things to know and understand about anxiety disorders and their symptoms.
1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Do you feel that you’re always on the edge of disaster?
Generalized anxiety disorder is the most prevalent kind of anxiety, impacting millions of people around the world. Sufferers typically feel worried or fearful without being able to pin down a specific reason or cause for their discomfort.
Often GAD sufferers experience such unrelenting anxiety that ongoing worries about their safety, finances, relationships, career, health, world events, etc. feel like part of who they are, rather than symptoms of a disorder they are suffering.
Additional GAD symptoms may include, but are not limited to the following:
- Sleeplessness
- Digestive discomfort
- Fidgeting
- Exhaustion
- Poor concentration
- Negativity or catastrophic thought patterns
If you are living with GAD, you likely experience the world as unsafe, feeling the need to be hypervigilant and prepared to deal with the stream of “what ifs” that occupy your mind routinely.
2. Social Anxiety Disorder
Do you fear parties, presentations, or meeting new people?
Social anxiety is increasingly common and much more than being shy or feeling discomfort among crowds. For sufferers of this disorder, social interaction, public performance or speaking, or unexpected gatherings can create intense fear and a strong need to withdraw or avoid social situations.
The following challenges often characterize this disorder:
- Anxiety about the idea of social situations
- Strong feelings of dread and hopelessness when confronted with unknown people or places
- Difficulty coping during unavoidable social situations
- Extreme “stage fright”
- Strong resistance to being watched, observed, or judged by strangers
- Intense fear of humiliation or ”losing face” in public
In addition, sufferers may experience racing thoughts, rapid breathing, increased heart rate, sweating, etc, when contemplating or participating in social interactions. Social anxiety disorder can seriously disrupt your personal life and work opportunities. This can create distress and further worry regarding future opportunities and relationships.
3. Panic Disorder
Does your fear actually feel like an all-out assault?
Panic disorder, also known as anxiety or panic attacks is often debilitating and intense. Sufferers of this condition endure repeated, unexpected floods of fear and discomfort that overtake their bodies and senses.
Panic attacks can strike at any time. Their intensity is often mistaken for a serious health crisis. However, symptoms typically last for 10 minutes or less.
Still, such unpredictability makes daily functioning difficult and another source of worry. Moreover, these attacks are accompanied, by the ongoing worry that another attack will occur soon.
Symptoms may include, but are not limited to the following:
- Accelerated heartbeat
- Profuse sweating
- Foreign bodily sensations or numbness
- A floating or “out of body” feeling
- Chest tightness
- Lightheadedness
- Shortness of breath
- Digestive discomfort
- Sense of doom or disaster
- A feeling of powerlessness or helplessness
4. Specific Phobias
Are you desperately, irrationally afraid of something in particular?
Specific phobias are marked by pervasive, unreasonable fear. This is due to the exposure to, or even the thought of, a particular object or circumstance. The item or situation typically poses little immediate danger. Yet, the sufferer’s reaction to it is extreme fear, catastrophizing, or avoidance.
Phobias symptoms can become particularly disruptive and may include the following :
- Excessive fear of situations that could lead to exposure
- An inability to quell fears, however unreasonable
- A tendency to take extreme actions to avoid confronting the phobia
- Reduced quality of life due to fear and avoidance
The distress associated with their phobias is often embarrassing and demoralizing, significantly impacting the suffers self-control and ability to employ rational thought. Often such fears are rooted in unaddressed trauma from the past.
5. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Do you relive past fear and trauma every day?
Major stressors, such as physical assaults and warfare, can cause what is known as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Sufferers experience flashbacks to stressful moments, forcing them to repeatedly experience the events.
Sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder experience intense anxiety after enduring or witnessing a life-altering or traumatic situation. The perpetual sense that danger is imminent impedes healthy coping strategies and interaction with the world.
Symptoms include:
- Hypervigilance
- Re-experiencing traumatic events via flashbacks, nightmares, etc
- Overwhelming reactions to triggers
- Ongoing worry about a recurrence of the traumatic event
- Avoidance of triggers or anything associated with the trauma
- Fatalism and detachment
- Strong sense of distrust or hostility
Survival of warfare, a natural disaster, or a violent assault increases vulnerability to this condition. However, mental health experts note that some people experience PTSD following stressors such as job loss, divorce, chronic illness, and more.
Sufferers may actively push away anything which may remind them of the past traumatic event. Wanting to numb emotional pain and avoid triggers can become a constant preoccupation. Interaction with loved ones can become strained and difficult, leading to social withdrawal as well.
6. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Is your fear in charge of your body and mind?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder can be particularly frustrating, disruptive, and devastating. A combination of obsessions and compulsions upset life and relationships for sufferers on a daily basis. The specific, repetitive preoccupations typical of OCD are unrelenting and cyclical, showing up in a variety of ways.
Consider the following symptoms:
Obsessions
- Repetitive. unwanted ideas or thoughts
- Distress about possible contamination
- Impulsive, unpredictable aggression
- Thoughts or mental images of harming loved ones
Compulsions
- Continuous inner obligation to monitor, control, or review things
- Constant need to count items
- Repetitious cleaning and organizing
- Repeated handwashings and decontamination
- Ongoing arranging and rearranging of objects regardless of function
Frustratingly, OCD sufferers often feel powerless to stop their behavior and stigmatized by their lack of control. Due to the time spent engaging in their compulsions and the added anxiety created by obsessive thoughts, a deep sense of helplessness and depression are quite common.
What to Do if You’re Struggling
Anxiety, clearly, manifests in many forms. And when you’re overwhelmed by it, it’s easy to feel lost and helpless.
However, it’s important to know that your fear and worry are very treatable conditions. Most of all, do know that you are not alone.
With support and customized therapy, you can overcome anxiety and live a full life, less hemmed in by your triggers or avoidance. In fact, with anxiety counseling, you may discover you have can take control of your emotions and move forward without the weight of worry holding you back. Contact me soon for a consultation. Together we can build a reserve of skills that will put anxiety in its place and propel you toward a freer, happier, more empowered you.
For more information, click here: Anxiety Therapy