Do you have anxiety???

[TxCat]

MistressManor, I don't think we're on the same page here when it comes to anxiety as an emotion and anxiety as a set of illnesses.

Most people get anxious in the situations you described (being with people you don't know well or in large groups of people and being in a position where people are going to laugh at you). The difference between ordinary anxiety, which is a normal emotion and has its place in the human experience as a survival skill (even in modern situations), and anxiety as an illness is the extent to which it impairs daily functioning. Normal anxiety is transient; the illness leaves you feeling paralyzed by worry and fear until you just can't do antything.

Only you and your health professional can really make that call because, as Grizz said, different words and experiences mean different things to people in various contexts. A good clue that it's gone beyond normal feelings would be if it interferes (even if you do overcome it with your own will) with your daily life.

Some days, even with medication, just going out of the house is a giant ordeal for me. I worry about whether or not I look all right. I worry about whether or not something bad will happen to the pets while I'm gone. I wonder if I'm making my friends and family mad by worrying so much. I worry about whether or not I'll have to fend off rude people or if we'll have a pleasant day. It's paralyzing; the whole world, on those days, seems to be made up of one big scary ball of things which would/could/should happen and they're all bad.

[Verotten]

Just noticed that I break into a cold sweat and stress before checking forums I've posted on (never posted much on forums before and never had the guts to go back to one I've posted on).
But I'm finding this forum quite comforting! It's nice to not feel so weird about not being 'normal'

I worry about whether or not I look all right ... I worry about whether or not I'll have to fend off rude people or if we'll have a pleasant day.

For the record, I'm sure you look just fine
As for rude people, I wonder if social anxiety would be so pronounced if people as a whole were kinder?
Could go some way to alleviating that constant fear of expecting a negative comment or situation...

GrowlingCupcake, I wish you all the best with your treatment! University is hard enough without the added stress... let us know how that medication goes?

[DameonDire]

Yes I agree with you Griz. But Txcat, I feel exactly the same way but I have grown out of worrying about my patents because they don't tell me anything.yesterday my dad went for his prostate check up and he said he had bad news but didn't tell me, now I'm worried its cancer. I worry about what I look like all the time, that is uncontrollable and I would associate that with peers and teachers as we can wear whatever in sixth form. However I do feel ny anxiety is holding me back from things such as being head girl as you have to stand in front of the whole year and I would literally shake if it were compulsory.

Furthermore, I am looking at the psychological point of view when you talk about your treatments as I'm studying psychology which helps a lot.

Could someone clarify what CBT is???

Is anyone on ECT here???

[Grizz]

Actually, if you agreed, you'd be explaining what you meant so we could continue our conversation, but that is neither here nor there.

CBT is shorthand for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The easiest way is to think of it like this: Cognitive (thoughts) affects behavior and thus vice versa. To change your behavior, you must change your thinking.

My anxiety, as I mentioned, has a lot to do with stress so my psychologist has me stop and think about how stressful a situation could be, for example, going on a date with a new person. Because I am stopping to think about the worst case, I'm actually relaxing myself because I'm not building it up to a huge proportion in my mind. However, that isn't going to work for everyone. It's just something that works for me.

ECT is extremely rare nowadays and you're more likely to find it used for someone with a major depressive disorder where nothing else works than you are for anxiety. Yes, the two can be co-morbid, but from my knowledge, the only time the benefits outweigh the costs is in the case of someone who has multiple suicidal attempts with no intent on stopping and, once again, no other way has worked.

[Grizz]

Somehow I double-posted. My apologies.

[TxCat]

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is, as Grizz mentioned, now thankfully a rare treatment in the US. Most patients simply do nor benefit from it. Its use is primarily confined to those with severe clinical depression (as a last resort therapy), some types of epilepsy in which the brain might benefit from an electrical 'reset', and schizophrenics. It is, oddly enough, the only thing which seems to work for them and even then it is still paired with medication and other therapies.

Anxiety is considered one of the easiest disorders to treat because it responds so well to medication and behavior modification.

[DameonDire]

Hmmm interesting. I think I might close this thread as I have said everything I want to and gotten all the responses I need. Thank you!

[TxCat]

Threads in the House of Speakers cannot be closed by the poster because this is a serious discussion forum. Others may read the topic later and want to contribute. This is the only forum where that is the case and necro'ing is allowed.

-- TxCat, moderator

[DameonDire]

I noticed, *heads desk*

[Wolfsister]

Er...sorry for the sheer length of this post, but here, have my life story:

I have never been diagnosed with anxiety, and most days I would not consider my level of anxiety as being on a level with a medical illness. Various mental conditions run in my family, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, and others that I don't know if we've ever named, so I've never been able to decide if my problems, when I have them, stem from one or more of these. Granted, I also often wonder if I legitimately have any of them at all, or just think I might because of the family history. I keep planning to see someone about it--they have free first sessions for counseling at my university--but every time I decide I absolutely need to do something about it, I have a run of good days and decide not to bother. I know it's something I should do anyway, but it's hard to make myself when the acts of arranging appointments, getting to them, and talking to strangers is something I avoid to spare myself the anxiety that comes with them.

On an average day, I really only have issues with time commitments, as in the knowledge that I have to be somewhere at a certain time, the potential of interaction with strangers or people I am not sure of, and normal (normal for me, likely fairly excessive for others) levels of stress. There are very few times where this actively prevents me from doing what needs to be done, though it does make it difficult and often results in me finding some roundabout way to avoid the issue altogether. My anxiety is absolutely stress related, at least the majority, but at this point in my life to lower my average stress would mean to give up both what I want to do and my ability to do it well, which is honestly a lot of what I like about myself.

For example, today I was anxious about needing to go to my department's office and ask the secretary to make copies for me, so instead I found a scanner at the university library, scanned the one copy of the document that I had, went back to my room, got the pdf converted to a Word document so it wouldn't look dark, and printed 20 copies, one by one, at the other library. That extent of avoidance behavior is pretty common for me, though I try to only resort to it when the end result is the same and if I feel as if following my original plan would absolutely result in me being useless for the rest of the day. While this is certainly not ideal, it only very rarely keeps me completely from what I need to do. I can only remember one day in my life where I was so anxious that I stood, ready to go, just inside my door and was unable to make myself open it--it was during a bad stretch just last semester and only lasted a few minutes before I was able to tell myself to stop being stupid.

To someone without anxiety or depression problems all this might sound horrible, but for me it shows a lack of severity that makes me want to keep trying to get through it on my own. There are some everyday activities that help me get out of my head when I remember to try them--music, TV, games, reading actual books and not on the computer--the problem being that I rarely do remember or feel that I have time to indulge myself. I do try mental tricks, like thinking about what I would do if the "worst" happened and how little it would effect me unless I let it, but that provides only a very short relief and I usually end up repeating it to myself on cycle and getting nowhere. I'm currently just trying to define where my "normal" lies, and learning to recognize when I go past my normal into something that is effecting my everyday life in ways it didn't in the past. I am currently planning on not getting a full time internship this summer, as the lack of breaks for the last couple years seems to be part of why I've been getting worse; in that case I will hopefully find the time to talk to someone before starting the ever more stressful world of graduate school.