What is Anxiety
Anxiety is when you feel nervous or worried for some reason. Sometimes this mental nervousness can take physical form where we start shaking like a leaf on a tree. We may feel agitated, like we have ants in our pants and can’t stand still, or have diarrhea or nausea. Anxiety can even lead to our feeling like we don’t want to go out of the house, or eat in public, or get into an elevator. If we do end up having to do those things, then we do so with so much shaking in our boots that someone could probably hear our knees knocking together!
When we try to understand anxiety though, there are so many different types that it all seems to get jumbled up in our minds. So let’s take some time to figure out the different types of anxiety disorders and see if we can describe them simply.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
This type of anxiety is like “worry” on steroids! Normally we worry about many things in life, but most of the time we’re still able to go to work and study for school, etc.
When you have excessive worry about everything under the sun, you just can’t focus on things that need to get done. Sometimes people worry about school, work responsibilities, their children, finances, the toilet, the dripping faucet, etc. The difference between normal worry and excessive worry is that the end result doesn’t justify the amount of worry and debilitation.
When you have this type of worry, you may feel like you keep trying to get rid of the thoughts but can’t. You feel like you’re always on the edge of your seat, or you feel like you’re so wound up that you can’t relax. You may also feel like you’re irritable and snappy, you have trouble sleeping and focusing on things you need to do.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessions
Here again is an example of normal worry and normal impulses that have gone wild. When you take out the trash or are around sick people, you may feel like you really need to wash your hands before you do anything else. If you have obsessions, you feel like you’re constantly thinking about your hands being dirty, or the doors not being locked properly, or the stove being on, etc. You may also have such
unacceptable intrusive thoughts like hurting someone in some way. These thoughts are not intentional and you dislike them and they cause you much distress. The problem is that as much as you try to get rid of them and block them out, they somehow keep coming back.
Compulsions
So then you end up inventing highly creative ways to distract yourself from having those unacceptable thoughts. Ways such as counting in a very, very specific way, or making sure the door is secured in a very specific order of operations. These are rituals. You may have hand washing rituals and count how many times you use soap vs water. You may be someone who, in order to feel clean, develop a ritual in the shower or with cleanliness in the house, etc.
Almost always, you recognize that these rituals are completely irrational and have nothing to do with actually solving the problem. But you keep doing it because you’re worried that if you don’t something really terrible is going to happen.
OCD was removed from the section on anxiety disorders in the DSM 5 and placed elsewhere recently.
Panic Attack
If you’ve ever been on a safari and ended up coming face to face with a lion, or had a staring contest with a bear, you know what panic feels like. The rapid breathing like you can’t catch your breath after running a mile, the rapid, pounding heartbeat that wants to break out of your rib cage, the dry mouth, the tingling sensation in the hands and feet, the hot and cold flushes that wash over your body. You may notice chest pain or abdominal pain, nausea or you may vomit. You may also feel like you’re going to faint or die, or like you are looking at yourself from outside.
Imagine unexpectedly getting this feeling while shopping on a routine day at Walmart! Imagine that this same feeling happens every few days without warning and for no reason whatsoever! This is like a fight-or-flight feeling… but you’re only picking roses or yogurt for dinner!
Sometimes people know what causes them to get panicky, but quite often they don’t. Can you imagine not knowing what causes this reaction? Or have a random panic-like reaction at random unpredictable times??
Agoraphobia
Sometimes the stressful situation is just being in public or being in a tight space in public, like an elevator or subway, which are places that would be difficult to escape from. For some people these places can cause extreme fear and are to be avoided at all cost, this is called agoraphobia. You might want to just stay home all the time or you might constantly be worried about the next panic attack and then avoid all situations that could possibly cause a panic attack.
Phobias
Phobias are where a very specific object, like spiders, snakes or mice cause you to jump out of your socks. It can also be related to a situation, like closing the door in an elevator or a closet, where you suddenly feel like you can’t breathe. Take that object or situation away, and the fear completely subsides.
These objects or situations cause fear for no real reason, just because…! It’s very different from fear of dogs after being attacked by one, or fear of elevators after being assaulted in one. That may well be PTSD.
PTSD
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was removed from the chapter on anxiety in the DSM 5 and placed elsewhere, but we will discuss it here because anxiety plays a large part in it.
The hallmark of this disorder is that you are exposed to a really dangerous or perceived to be a dangerous situation, like assault or war or a car accident. You start to relive that experience over and over again in nightmares or daydreams, or sights and smells remind you of the traumatic event.
If you remember walking up to the scene of a car crash or other traumatic event, you may recall feeling weak in your legs, or shaky and nervous yourself. This feeling may happen even if you weren’t involved at all, or if you were just there to help. You might sometimes feel that same type of anxiety or nerves the next time you smell gasoline fumes. It may remind you of the car accident.
Re-experiencing
People with PTSD are often constantly reminded of the traumatic event in their dreams, or by loud sounds or smells of certain cologne etc. When this happens, they are taken right back there again, with the same pounding heart and rapid breathing and fear for their life!
If this happens to you, you might avoid everything that could possibly remind you, you might avoid all your friends and hobbies and feel like you’re all washed up. You might become extremely irritable, have difficulty sleeping or scare easily and jump out of your socks the moment someone slams a door or books onto a table.
Do You Have Anxiety?
If any of this makes resonates with you, or you feel like you have any of the above, there are very effective treatments that we can help you with. You might feel like there’s no hope and no help but a mental health professional can be so helpful that you will be surprised. There are medications, there are supplements and there is therapy that we can help you get connected to.
So if you or someone you know is having any of these symptoms, contact us now to set up an appointment.
