ANXIETY DOESN’T HAVE TO TAKE OVER
“Ugh, I have to walk into the office, and everyone is going to stare at me! What must the think about me? They probably think I’m weird, they just pretend to like me. Oh my god, did my stomach just grumble. For sure everyone heard that. They think I’m gross. Why does this always happen to me? Everyone is staring at me, I just want to run out of here. I’m not coming to work tomorrow. I’m not good at my job anyways. Why did they even hire me. I’ll probably get fired soon.”
Anxiety can be an incredibly debilitating, and for some it can be create major mental roadblocks. Anxiety manifests in different ways and each person’s experience of anxiety is unique to them. When you suffer from anxious thoughts and feelings, it can often feel like you are the only one suffering. Anxiety is an internal experience and while there are physical symptoms, usually most people can’t tell when someone is feeling anxious. This is because the person feeling anxious may seem completely okay on the outside. Anyone can suffer from anxiety, from young children to seniors and everyone in between. I think it’s a safe assumption to make that everyone on this planet has had moments of anxiety. Anxiety is a healthy, and normal emotion. A healthy amount of anxiety is what
keeps us from wandering alone on dark streets in the middle of the night or persuades us to study for that big exam. Anxiety can become a problem when it starts to take over other emotions and our reactions do not match the size of the problem, leaving us feeling dysregulated and overwhelmed.
Not everyone who struggles with their anxiety necessarily has an anxiety disorder however it is important to speak to your doctor if you are noticing that your anxious feelings are starting to take over your thought processes and interfering with your quality of life. A few common anxiety disorders are:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A pattern of chronic, persistent and excessive worry without a specific cause or reason. It is often accompanied by physical symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and elevated heart rate.
Social Anxiety Disorder: Significant feelings of worry about being judged negatively by others. Often feel self-conscious and inadequate compared to others. Individuals experience significant distress when they are in social situations such as meeting new people, speaking in public, or being watched while doing something.
Agoraphobia: An intense fear about being in places or situations where it may be difficult to escape. In extreme cases people with agoraphobia are unable to leave their homes.
Specific Phobia: An unrealistic, and unreasonable fear of a specific situation, object or setting.
Panic Disorder: Fear of having panic attacks in public. Individual will experienced unexpected an unpredictable panic attacks and the fear of having a panic attack can lead to a resistance of leaving home.
The power your mind has over you is astounding and when anxious thoughts take over, it can really make you feel stuck. Simple tasks are no longer simple and require much more time and effort to get done. Feeling like you are always on edge makes it so much more harder to concentrate on your work and makes it feel like it is impossible to get anything done. Social interactions become tiresome as well, and avoiding the people and situations that make you feel anxious seems
like the only possible solution.
Anxiety can be an incredibly lonely experience, but the good news is that it doesn’t need to be that way. If you are feeling or showing symptoms of anxiety, sweeping it under the rug, and hoping things get better generally does not tend to work out. Mental health issues are not always something you can control and fix yourself. Reaching out to someone who can help may seem scary but it is worth it in the end. Your treatment can include medication but it does not necessarily need
to, having a discussion with your physician can help to determine the best course of action for you. Psychotherapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy have been shown to be incredibly effective in treating anxiety. CBT teaches people to challenge their unhelpful anxious thinking and to find a way to reframe it in more realistic way. Exposure therapy helps people to
confront their fear and worries and to reduce their fearful reactions to their triggers, with the support and guidance of a therapist.
