I am not “cured” but I have learnt to cope with anxiety. I’ve suffered anxiety in many different forms including “general”, OCD, health, phobias, panic attacks etc and I’ve also self harmed and taken od’s. I’ve also tried most medications and various therapies such as counselling and CBT but I found the most useful method to learn to cope with my anxiety was by helping myself based on the advice I’d been given and the knowledge I had learnt, so these are Just my views.
Sorry this is long but it covers many variations and anxiety symptoms. I'm hoping it'll just make people aware of why they "may" be feeling as they are and explain possible ways to cope with those feelings. Anyway, I'll leave you to decide for yourselves what you think.
Anxiety causes are far too complex to generalise as we are all individuals who have experienced different stressful events. However, we often have a sensitive nature but we can also be intense which makes us conscientious wanting to get things right; so much so that we attempt to achieve perfection in everything we do. Our perfectionism though, can produce stress which can then lead to anxiety conditions such as OCD.
Our sensitivity makes us more vulnerable to outside influences that shape our lives but I think though, that it is our intensity that makes us more liable to suffering stress related symptoms.
Stress can be brought on by many causes and often we’re unaware of them because we are sidetracked by our symptoms that make us feel “ill” that have been caused by our minds which have become overloaded by too much stress.
Our sensitivity makes it difficult for us to cope with bad events. These bad events can cause us stress and over a long period of time the effects can build up until suddenly we feel “ill” with anxiety. That’s why people often say their anxiety began at a certain time because it was the point in time when things became too much to cope with. However, sudden events can also cause huge stress such as a traumatic event and it can take a long time to come to terms with the effects they have on us before we feel able to move forward again.
I should think that the most common triggers of stress that tip the balance are caused by our situation at home or at work, or both. Also though, these can be “the last straw” after years of absorbing stressful events such as mistreatment, neglect, abandonment, lack of attention etc.
When our minds have become overloaded, the stress we experience preys on our intensive nature and so triggers us to worry more because of our negative thought patterns. We then start noticing things more such as palpitations and other health related matters. Our intensity then makes us focus on these health concerns making us worry that there is something seriously wrong with us when it is actually the stress that we’re experiencing that has triggered our negative thoughts into looking for something to worry about which normally wouldn’t bother us.
However, health anxiety can also be caused by an upsetting event in the past which has also caused us stress so we begin to look for the same health condition in ourselves because it’s been imprinted in our minds due to our sensitivity and then become a phobia as the event frightened us so much. This is why I say it’s difficult to generalise because there are so many variations which cause the same stresses.
Have you heard of parrots in cages that pull their feathers out? Perhaps boredom plays a part but I think the main cause of their behaviour is because they feel stressed because they feel “trapped”. When things become too much for us, we become stressed and so we often also feel trapped.
We like routine in our lives to feel “safe”. Change adds to our feelings of insecurity. Our fears cause us to worry how we’d cope if we changed jobs, how we’d cope alone and also if we tried confronting worrying thoughts that prevent us from doing the every day things we’d like to.
We feel stressed but also trapped by fear of change so our fears then control our lives in every aspect because we feel unable to change the things that cause our stress. This trapped feeling will lead to us experiencing panic attacks. Panic attacks are not always caused by the actual situation in which they occur but because we have a general feeling of being trapped by our fears and stresses in our life at that current time. However, panic attacks can also occur due to a previous bad experience from which a phobia has resulted.
This feeling of being trapped leads to a depressed state making us feel incapable. If we also already have low self esteem from past bad experiences, our negative thought patterns take over making us feel bad, guilty, weak, worthless etc because stress has caused us to turn in on ourselves.
When things have become too much for us to cope with, we start looking for a “magic cure” to stop our anxiety symptoms so we’re often prescribed anti-depressants. As the title suggests, they lift our mood by counteracting our negativity that causes us to worry thus enabling us to feel “happier” about ourselves and to help prevent us focussing on irrational negative thoughts about our general health.
However, in the long term we can then often become dependent on anti-depressants because they’re helping us to cope with the stresses in our lives and there’s really nothing wrong with that providing we’re happy as a result. Sometimes also there can be underlying depression so anti-depressants can be of great benefit. However, underlying depression shouldn’t be confused with a depressed state caused by anxiety because in this case, if the anxieties are treated, the depressed state will also lift.
Ant-depressants can be very useful when we have reached a point where we can’t see a way out of our trap. However, while they are providing a lift to our mood, it is then possible to learn to cope without medication IF later a person feels ready to be able to confront the underlying causes that have created the stress and anxiety symptoms.
For instance, a psychologist can help us to see what is causing our stress and provide us with a clearer picture to help us decide for ourselves how best to alleviate the stresses in our lives. A therapist can help us to confront our fears that are causing us to feel stressed and trapped, and a counsellor can explore our past history to provide an understanding as to the origin of our anxieties and help us to come to terms with our past bad experiences to enable us to move forward.
Some causes of stress can be easier to treat than others. If we feel too stressed in our workplace, we should consider a new job where we know we’d be under less stress and have more job satisfaction. If the stress is caused by home life, we should consider making changes in the home. When we feel happier in our lives and as a result feel less stressed, so our fears and anxieties will feel less frightening and we’re better able to learn to cope with our fears.
Sometimes though our trap feels impossible to change because our fears feel too great and then we have to turn to professional support to enable us to feel stronger and more capable in ourselves. We ALL have strength but often our fears and negative thinking prevent us from seeing and realising it so we continue to live a life of suffering.
There is no “magic cure” and it’s impossible to generalise to say one treatment will “cure” all because anxiety is far too complex as it takes many forms because we’re All individuals suffering anxieties caused by many varied experiences.
However, once we feel able to make changes by challenging our stresses and learn a new way of thinking, whether by helping ourselves or with the “right” professional support, it is possible to free ourselves from our cages and live a happier, more relaxed contented life without living with too much debilitating stress.
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