Anxiety

An...xi....ety  (This is a loooooong post. Sorry in advance. Anxiety deserves its own descriptive file.)

Anxiety: Also known as one's own deep personal hell. Anxiety is your brain working against you. Anxiety can become a living, breathing dragon, puffing steam over your tense shoulders, whispering fallacies that take root and begin to grow in your mind.

You're not going to be able to do this.

You can't handle this.

This will be a disaster.

You're a failure.

Everyone is laughing at you. 

You're too fat.

You're stupid. 

They're all judging you.

What if you can't sleep tonight?

What if that cramp in your leg is cancer?

Lies, lies, lies, and more lies.

Yet this is just a teensy bit of internal dialogue that goes on inside the brain of someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are right up at the top of the list of my Most Distressing Mental Disorders. Bipolar and OCD are competitors for the number 1 spot usually, but sometimes Anxiety reaches up and takes the cake. Typically, I would rank Anxiety in the third spot, sometimes tied for second (it used to be considered in the same group as OCD, but I guess now OCD is its own disease now). Anxiety is a vicious beast. The only way I can manage my severe anxiety is with medication, specifically, Xanax. I have found that anti-depressants help with anxiety, but I cannot take those with Bipolar disorder.

There are so many different forms of anxiety disorders. General Anxiety, Anxiety from PTSD, Social Anxiety, Phobias, Panic Disorder, and so on. No matter that type of anxiety disorder you have, it's a brutal beast to have on your back.

I am not a doctor or a medical professional. All of these experiences are my own or first-hand from other non-medical people. Please consult a medically-qualified person if you believe you have any of the conditions I discuss here on my blog.

All of this material is my own thoughts and opinions from my own experiences with mental illnesses. All sources are attributed when used.

Mild Helpers for Anxiety

As I mentioned above, I don't have any magical cures for anxiety. The best thing I can do for my own anxiety (General/Panic) is to not fight the attack when it comes. I acknowledge it but let it come. If that doesn't help, Xanax does. I use an app at night called "Calm," and it uses guided meditation to help calm you down from a variety of situations where anxiety might be triggered. That helps me fall asleep at night. Exercise seems to help stave off the frequency of panic attacks and the severity of the anxiety.

Sleep Anxiety

Anxiety is also so brutal because it tends to rob the sufferer of sleep. I get so much sleep anxiety, it's ridiculous. It's called hypnophobia. Basically, you have a bad night's sleep, then you start worrying about the next night's sleep, and it turns into this vicious, hellish nightmare of a cycle. Our three-pound noodle goop is weird like that. The only way I can manage my sleep problems is through medication. I will talk more about sleep, Bipolar disorder, and sleeping medication in a different post. Actually, I have decided I will do a whole post on hynophobia and sleep disorders in the future.

Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is wonnnnddeeeerrrfffullll. Or a hellish nightmare; you choose what you want to call it. I do have social anxiety, but not as severely as some others I have met in person or online. With social anxiety, you are afraid of anything involving other people. Some weird aspects of social anxiety that I have encountered are: being anxious of sleeping with anyone else in the room with me (including beloved husband...usually have to go off to the guest room or the couch), being overwhelmed at events or parties, and avoiding human contact in general. I do avoid parties and get-togethers, and large crowds. I don't know if this is necessarily social anxiety so much as I prefer to be in my own company. I do know at least one friend of mine who is incapacitated from social anxiety, only leaving his house to work on a behind-the-scenes tech job with very little people interaction, and ordering all of his supplies online, and having friends and family go to the store for him. He doesn't mind being outside of his house (so it's not agoraphobia), it's that he gets such severe panic attacks around people. People with social anxiety tend to get wound up in panic attacks and knots, always fearing others are watching, judging and laughing at them. It's an isolating condition.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Generalized Anxiety Disorder means that you don't have anxiety tied to one specific area, like a social event or a past trauma. You just have anxiety in general all or most of the time. Everything gives you anxiety. Your anxiety gives you anxiety. You worry constantly about the littlest of things and blow things out of proportion. You struggle with insomnia as your mind will not turn off at night. You ruminate on every thought and comment and discussion. You feel tense and on edge with nothing going on in your life to cause it. GAD looks like this: You take your car into the mechanic for an oil change, and he comes out and asks to talk to you about something. You immediately start wondering how in the world you are going to afford thousands to fix your car, and you may even start to call or text people to start arranging for rides to and from work since your car is broken. It turns out, the mechanic just wanted to tell you your car needed a new air filter for $5 and wanted to double-check that it was ok with you before he changed it. Another example: Walking out of a department store and the sensor alarm goes off, and you break into a cold sweat, stopping dead in your tracks. Your mind whirls, What set off the alarm? Was it my bag? Oh my god, they think I stole something! What am I going to tell the police when they arrive to arrest me? Turns out, an employee waves you through, telling you the sensor has been malfunctioning all day, and to have a pleasant afternoon. That's what GAD is. It blows every little thing in your life way out of proportion. It is an illogical mess in your mind. I have GAD, and I tend to write down my illogical thoughts, which helps me see how silly and outlandish they are.

Panic Disorder & Agoraphobia

Ug. I am already working on a whole, separate post for Panic Disorder. It is very distressing but also one of the most treatable disorders for me in my own personal experience. The next post on my blog after this one goes up will be about Panic Disorder. It will also briefly address Agoraphobia which is basically a crippling condition where you avoid any situations that cause you panic, and your anxiety levels keep increasing, therefore your world keeps shrinking.

Phobias

Here is a link to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America's article on specific phobias. The only phobia I've had an experience with is hynophobia, the fear of sleep. I am currently working on that in therapy. Other than that, I don't have really specific phobias, so I can't write a ton on other types of phobias. If you have different types of clinically diagnosed phobias, I'd love to hear about them in the comments section.

What's You, and What's Your Anxiety?

Sometimes, my anxiety is so bad that I will be left crying it out. That's when I write down the thoughts in my head on a piece of paper on the left side of the paper. I draw a line down the middle. I write each anxious thought down in the left column, and I counter it with a logical thought on the right side of the paper. But how do you know what is from your anxiety talking, and your own, regular human emotions?

It's difficult to discern what thoughts are your anxiety, and what thoughts are your regular set of reactions. For example: If you have a final exam tomorrow, and you wonder if you are going to get a good grade or not and this is making you anxious, it's probably a normal human reaction. After all, getting good grades on final exams are important. Another example: If you are getting ready to ask the girl of your dreams out on a date, you might be anxious that she'll say no or think ill of you. That's a pretty normal human reaction.

Catastrophic Thinking & Abnormal Anxious Thoughts

An abnormally anxious reaction to the above final exam situation would be: I know that despite studying and doing my best in the class, I'm going to fail the final. I am going to get a C in the class. My professor will think poorly of me. I am so stupid. I may as well drop out of school. I wonder what types of jobs I could get after this term is over. Maybe college isn't for me. *begins looking at Craigslist jobs* 

So we went from worrying about doing well on the final (normal), to searching for jobs because we might drop out of school because there is not a possible way to do well on the final (abnormal, catastrophic thinking).

An abnormally anxious reaction to the above ask-out-the-girl situation would be: She is way too pretty and nice for me. Look at me. I'm average height. I don't workout like a lot of guys do, and I don't make very much money. Why put myself through the rejection? Women will never like me. I will spend my whole life alone. A relationship with any woman is hopeless. The rest of my life will be miserable.

So we went from being nervous about asking a pretty girl on a date to determining that we will have a hopeless, lonely life with no meaningful relationships.

This is Anxiety the Devil-Beast talking.

Rational Responses

Who knows? Maybe you ace the Final Exam. Maybe you fail it and get a C in the class, and go on to get better grades in the future. It's just one class, after all. You're not perfect.

Who knows? Maybe that pretty girl says yes, and you have a wonderful relationship that leads to something more. Or, maybe she says no, and you shrug it off, realizing that there are plenty of women out there.

Those are the rational responses. Those of us with Anxious brains don't have those rational responses right away. We always go to the worst situation we can think of.

One personal example I went through recently was a severe ear infection that affected my balance. It caused me vertigo and balance issues, and I was quite sick for several months from the combination of the infection, and the steroids and antibiotics. The specialist told me it could take up to four months to go away completely. After 3 weeks, I convinced myself I was going to permanently disabled and ordered a cane online, and started researching handicap placards for my car. Sure enough, though, my ear infection went away and I am back to my normal, physically-healthy self -- in four months, just like my doctor said.