Random/innocuous things that cause you great anxiety?

[Lencoboy]

Just out of interest, has anyone ever felt a sense of discomfort over certain stimuli (a sound, sight, smell, taste, touch, or all or perhaps a combo of some of those stimuli) that initially passed virtually unnoticed but became more severe and intense over time to the extent of causing crippling anxiety?

That's happened to me a fair few times throughout my life, even to the point of other things associated with the discomforting/feared subjects/situations also starting to cause pain and anxiety.

[Catkins]

I've had smells that have taken me back to an unhappy/traumatic situation. I guess almost like a flashback.

The strange thing is that they can be smells that I will have smelt before but if I'm feeling vulnerable or going through a bad time anxiety wise they can suddenly effect me. Fortunately for me this doesn't generally continue and when I'm feeling better in myself the smell doesn't effect me again.

[Fishmanpa]

While it doesn't cause great anxiety (and I've mentioned this before), beeping noises (like when a vehicle is backing up etc.) irritate the hell out of me. I know 100% its a leftover from cancer treatment. A dozen or so patients would be a large room with stations so to speak, where we'd receive chemo. If a line got occluded, the machine would beep. That inevitably happened several times while I was getting me dose of chemo. I would end up getting up and out of my station, take my chemo machine (which was on wheels) and go roam the halls on the floor I was on to get away from the sound. The nurses even joked about it with me. They would hear the beeping and then it was "There he goes" as I walked out of the room.

Other than that, and its funny because I'm a musician and perform to oft times crowded rooms of people, crowded stores get on my last nerve sometimes. Like today... We do our shopping on Sundays early to avoid the crowds but I wasn't feeling great this morning so we didn't get out until later in the morning and by that time the stores are buzzing with shoppers. I guess its because I'm old and crabby but I hate dealing with crowds taking their good 'ol time when I just want to get in and out. But again, it's not great anxiety as much as its irritability. And I also assume that for me, that's how stress/anxiety manifests itself. When I was dealing with 'scanxiety' after treatment, it was the same thing... I got irritable and had little patience in the weeks prior to my scans. Fortunately, the doctor gave me a non SSRI chill pill I could take in the time leading up to the scans that really took the edge off

FMP

[Lencoboy]

While it doesn't cause great anxiety (and I've mentioned this before), beeping noises (like when a vehicle is backing up etc.) irritate the hell out of me. I know 100% its a leftover from cancer treatment. A dozen or so patients would be a large room with stations so to speak, where we'd receive chemo. If a line got occluded, the machine would beep. That inevitably happened several times while I was getting me dose of chemo. I would end up getting up and out of my station, take my chemo machine (which was on wheels) and go roam the halls on the floor I was on to get away from the sound. The nurses even joked about it with me. They would hear the beeping and then it was "There he goes" as I walked out of the room.

Other than that, and its funny because I'm a musician and perform to oft times crowded rooms of people, crowded stores get on my last nerve sometimes. Like today... We do our shopping on Sundays early to avoid the crowds but I wasn't feeling great this morning so we didn't get out until later in the morning and by that time the stores are buzzing with shoppers. I guess its because I'm old and crabby but I hate dealing with crowds taking their good 'ol time when I just want to get in and out. But again, it's not great anxiety as much as its irritability. And I also assume that for me, that's how stress/anxiety manifests itself. When I was dealing with 'scanxiety' after treatment, it was the same thing... I got irritable and had little patience in the weeks prior to my scans. Fortunately, the doctor gave me a non SSRI chill pill I could take in the time leading up to the scans that really took the edge off

FMP

Endless high-pitched beeping sounds can drive any otherwise sane person to distraction, especially as they seem to be virtually everywhere these days, but it seems most people manage to just put on a brave face most of the time.

Seriously, why do designers and manufacturers of electronic devices have to design such products to emit such sounds when switching functions and/or scrolling through menus?

They must assume that most people nowadays are hyposensitive and actually crave such torturous sensory overload.

Ditto for loud adverts on TV, YouTube, etc that often assault us with no warning, especially the Jet2 Holidays adverts with Jess Glynne's whiney high-pitched vocals (in the UK at least).

And don't even get me started on the OTT loud background music that plagues a lot of films, TV dramas and documentaries these days, of which I often find unnecessary and often detracts from the subject matter, and not forgetting poxy in-yer-face on-screen text!

[Lencoboy]

Before Christmas I was watching a video on YouTube produced by a Warwick-based plumber, whose project was to remove a 'sunken' bath from a house somewhere on his manor.

The house looked like it was built sometime during the 80s (the outgoing bathroom suite was light blue, typical of the 80s era), and that particular property had a stepped-down section on the side, in which the 'sunken' bath was actually built into, but accessed from and as part of the (upper level) bathroom, with the 'sunken' bath nestled in an arched 'recess'.

The 'sunken' bath was eventually replaced with a (step-down) shower cubicle in the same 'recess'.

That 'sunken' bath in that 'recess' would have been the stuff of nightmares for me as a child, especially as it looked pitch dark in it without the lights on.

Even today as an adult in my mid 40s I still would have felt extremely uncomfortable using that bath.

Structural constraints aside, it seemed on the face of it like a rather oddball design, which also may have posed a
H & S hazard, especially if an unsupervised, curious little kid was to accidentally tumble head-first into it if it was full of water!

But the architects and builders obviously never gave that as much as a second thought at the drawing board stage;
such haphazard designs would probably be highly condemned in new-builds today in 2022!

[Carnation]

Hearing someone cutting their nails makes me cringe

[Lencoboy]

Hearing someone cutting their nails makes me cringe

And even worse, if people don't clean up the clippings afterwards, ewww!

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hearing someone cutting their nails makes me cringe

Poor Mrs Doyle

[MyNameIsTerry]

Just out of interest, has anyone ever felt a sense of discomfort over certain stimuli (a sound, sight, smell, taste, touch, or all or perhaps a combo of some of those stimuli) that initially passed virtually unnoticed but became more severe and intense over time to the extent of causing crippling anxiety?

That's happened to me a fair few times throughout my life, even to the point of other things associated with the discomforting/feared subjects/situations also starting to cause pain and anxiety.

I've had smells that have taken me back to an unhappy/traumatic situation. I guess almost like a flashback.

The strange thing is that they can be smells that I will have smelt before but if I'm feeling vulnerable or going through a bad time anxiety wise they can suddenly effect me. Fortunately for me this doesn't generally continue and when I'm feeling better in myself the smell doesn't effect me again.

There were some studies about how the anxious brain used smells. You might be interested in a thread I posted about years ago:

https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showth...Power-Of-Smell

[Catkins]

Thanks for that Terry.