Anxiety sounds so lame.

[puppyskin]

Don't you think the word ANXIETY sounds so lame and unimportant to what you actually go through? i mean i have been in the depths of fear/pain/weirdness/depression/and near insanity and to tell someone it's just ANXIETY sounds....well not enough...just my thoughts.

[Edie]

I agree with you puppyskin. To me, the word "anxious" means something like "mildly nervous." It seems like something everyone feels when they go for a job interview or meet their new partner's parents. Fear and terror are much better words to describe the way I feel.

[lizzie29]

I see what you mean. I've had people say "everyone gets anxious at times" and had people refer to job interviews etc, as Edie said. But anxiety that we have is on a totally different level. Some amount of anxiety is normal, but it's when it starts affecting your life that it becomes an issue.

[lizzie29]

Yes, it is subjective I suppose. People say they're depressed when they're having a bad day And nothing like the same scale of people with proper depression. I do agree that it's frustrating though as people often take it lightly which can be hard when it's such a big issue for us.

[Bluebelle]

I agree "anxiety" is just to weak a word for what we experience.

I was trying to explain it to somebody and it just struck me ...anixety is a word. It doesn't describe the illness - it's just a name.

[hanshan]

Anxiety is one of the things that make us human - we are able to be fearful of things that are only in our imagination, when no danger is actually present.

I guess this this is a great survival mechanism for the species, but for some people it works too well, making them fearful of situations they know are harmless, or even fearful for no reason at all that they can think of.

[little wren]

I think it is a matter of degree of anxiety. A lot of people using this site anxiety is easily triggered by something most people would not be bothered by, its effects are more extreme and because it can be triggered by fairly neutral everyday things (instead of the interview/exam etc) it is more likely to be experienced. A bit of anxiety before an exam is fairly useful - hones the concentration etc. Anxiety which is debilitating is the other end of the scale (IMHO) x

[Pipkin]

Hi there,

For those of us who are interested in the concept of mental illness, this is one of the central points. The issue is that all humans get anxious and it's a part of our survival mechanism - without it, we'd have been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers years ago.

As a result, some of those who don't suffer from anxiety disorders think we have the same levels of anxiety as them but that we just can't cope as well as they can. That's why we come across attitudes such as 'just deal with it' and 'pull yourself together'. As Lizzie pointed out, depression has a similar problem.

If we believe that our levels of anxiety constitute mental illness, which most of us probably do (though there are many that don't), then describing it as such makes it distinct from normal levels of anxiety. This stops it sounding 'lame'. 2 problems with this though: the stigma that we then can face and how to define 'normal' anxiety from an anxiety disorder. The last question is usually answered through DSM criteria (which many of our docs will have used - remember the questionnaire?) or the degree of negative impact it has on people's lives. Very subjective though.

So to get back to the original point, yes it can sound quite ordinary despite it being crippling for many of us. Who knows what the answer is though?

Pip