{"id":1563,"date":"2015-06-05T12:47:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T16:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2022-06-29T17:43:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T21:43:24","slug":"understanding-and-coping-with-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thatorganicmom.com\/understanding-and-coping-with-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding and Coping With Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What\u2019s it like to have generalized anxiety disorder? <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's very unpleasant to experience anxiety on a regular basis. Coping is something that takes time to learn and not easy to do on your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen felt appropriately, anxiety is beneficial and can keep you out of harm's way\u2026 the anxiety you may feel while hiking near a steep drop-off, for instance, will cause you to be more careful and purposeful in your movements. However, anxiety may occur even when there's no real threat, causing unnecessary stress and emotional pain. While many believe anxiety and stress to be the same, persistent anxiety actually evokes quite a different experience in your brain.\u201d(2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, a person diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder<\/strong>, one of the symptoms of a panic attack is a feeling of imminent death or doom, this feeling is combined with intense physical symptoms that are nearly identical to a heart attack. For me, it actually starts out with feeling overwhelmed, and very quickly progresses to shortness of breath, nausea, a headache and tears. This is an over simplistic description of my own symptoms, because it is extremely hard to describe in words the level of pain and panic that are actually felt in each moment. They almost always involve a sense of fear, dread, or apprehension<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's hard to enjoy life on a consistent level. A person with even moderate anxiety rarely experiences a peace of mind<\/strong>. They are often fearful, worrisome, and unhappy. A person with anxiety doesn\u2019t like being this way but they honestly have no idea what to do to change. It seems as if things are too much work and no one understands the way they feel. Thoughts of \u201cwhat if\u201d and other hopeless thinking literally drains their energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another annoying symptom of GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) is startling easily<\/strong>. (3<\/a>) My children have learned through experience that to attempt to make me jump will bring me to tears and possibly they will shed tears as well!  I literally hate surprises, they feel so out of control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anxiety is not logical<\/strong>. When a person with anxiety disorder experiences something that triggers them, it may or may not make sense to others. Others may think that the person experiencing the anxiety is \u201cmaking a mountain out of a molehill\u201d or exaggerating the issue, but I assure you, the person experiencing the anxiety does not and probably cannot see it from your perspective. Trying to rationalize away the thoughts of a person experiencing a panic attack or anxiety will be fruitless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Anxiety<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Causes of anxiety<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some theorize that anxiety is inherited<\/strong> while others suggest that increased stress often appears to trigger the disorder<\/strong>; stressors such as a death in the family, an illness, job loss or divorce. \u201cStress from positive events such as marriage or a new job can also trigger it. But mental health professionals say stress is merely a trigger, not the cause.\u201d (4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For myself, I believe certain events during my own childhood set me up for a tendency towards anxiety. Starting in my early 20\u2019s I suffered from a very mild form of anxiety, though I had no idea that\u2019s what it was. I suffered with mild anxiety on and off then it suddenly got a lot worse after I repeatedly went through several stressful events that I did not handle well. These life events were extremely stressful and I had been taught as a child that showing emotion was a sign of weakness, so I continued to be strong for those around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Events such as the sudden onset of illness in my father which rapidly led to his death, then my own sister missing our father\u2019s funeral as she was admitted to the hospital for an emergency gall bladder removal then subsequently being diagnosed with cancer. Then watching her suffer nearly two years<\/a> and finally succumb to death, all while going through financial stress in my own family, coupled with marital issues, and plenty more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why can\u2019t you control it?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anxiety changes brain chemistry in a way that creates negative thinking<\/i> – negative thinking reduces the ability to think positively, which in turn makes it harder to control anxiety. (1<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Believe me, no one chooses to have anxiety<\/strong>, and everyone who has it wishes they could make it just go away. I suffered from anxiety for years, over a decade really, before I even understood what was wrong with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was so used to the feelings of anxiety<\/strong> that I truly didn't realize what my problem was and I just continued to suffer in silence. As my anxious feelings intensified, it sometimes led to isolation from the people around me, physical symptoms such as exhaustion, and related mental health problems, like mild to moderate depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

These feelings can be made worse by advice from well meaning people, such as a Pastor who once told me that \u201cChristians do not suffer from mental illnesses\u201d which left me wondering; am I not a Christian, or is all this mental suffering just an illusion<\/strong>? Thankfully, I worked through that and now know that this particular pastor is unfortunately misinformed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can also be made worse by hurried doctors who, caught in the system, just try to put a band-aid (pills) on it and move on without getting to know what is going on in the life of the patient. I actually had one experience like this with a doctor in my early 20\u2019s.  I had only gone to one time for strep-throat, who after I broke down crying in his office due to the sheer exhaustion of everything I was going through, wrote me a prescription for Prozac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, this was definitely the wrong path, and I can write an entirely separate blog post about what happened to me after I started taking Prozac. For brevity, I\u2019ll just say that I made many bad choices while under the numbing influence of Prozac that affected my life long term.  In my opinion, antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs<\/a> should only be prescribed by Psychiatrists, not general practitioners. However, that is just MY opinion<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dealing with anxiety<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What NOT to say to someone with GAD:<\/p>\n\n\n\n