Anxiety
 

I was listening to a podcast called The Experts Speak from the Florida Psychiatric Society, and while looking for a good place to post it, I couldn't find a thread general enough to address anxiety regardless of specific diagnosis.

The podcast I was listening to was "when anxiety turns into depression" which was put out July 2011 (and can be listened to from the above link.)

A few years back I began researching PTSD and read that a difficult-to-medicate depression can develop as a symptom. This fit in well with the phases in my life which have triggered severe depression. It also fits the patterns I've seen my father to through throughout my life. He will be fine, then he seems to hit a wall of anxiety and then he just shuts down for long periods of time.

Elsewhere I have read that regardless of the underlying diagnosis, anxiety disorders are often treated with the same or similar methods. I am not an expert, but I thought it might be good to have a general thread for those of us with anxiety symptoms to share experience and knowledge. This podcast mentioned anxiety was the most common psychiatric issue in women and the second most common issue among men - just after substance abuse.

According to the NIMH, the five major types of anxiety disorders are:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - Generalized Anxiety Disorder, GAD, is an anxiety disorder characterized by chronic anxiety, exaggerated worry and tension, even when there is little or nothing to provoke it. People with generalized anxiety disorder can't seem to shake their concerns. Their worries are accompanied by physical symptoms, especially fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, muscle aches, difficulty swallowing, trembling, twitching, irritability, sweating, and hot flashes.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety. People with OCD may be plagued by persistent, unwelcome thoughts or images, or by the urgent need to engage in certain rituals. They may be obsessed with germs or dirt, and wash their hands over and over. They may be filled with doubt and feel the need to check things repeatedly.

Panic Disorder - Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms that may include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, or abdominal distress. People with panic disorder have feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. During a panic attack, most likely your heart will pound and you may feel sweaty, weak, faint, or dizzy. Your hands may tingle or feel numb, and you might feel flushed or chilled. You may have nausea, chest pain or smothering sensations, a sense of unreality, or fear of impending doom or loss of control.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - PTSD is an anxiety disorder that some people get after seeing or living through a dangerous event. When in danger, it’s natural to feel afraid. This fear triggers many split-second changes in the body to prepare to defend against the danger or to avoid it. This “fight-or-flight” response is a healthy reaction meant to protect a person from harm. But in PTSD, this reaction is changed or damaged. People who have PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they’re no longer in danger.

PTSD can cause many symptoms. These symptoms can be grouped into three categories:

1. Re-experiencing symptoms:

Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating
Bad dreams
Frightening thoughts.
Re-experiencing symptoms may cause problems in a person’s everyday routine. They can start from the person’s own thoughts and feelings. Words, objects, or situations that are reminders of the event can also trigger re-experiencing.

2. Avoidance symptoms:

Staying away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the experience
Feeling emotionally numb
Feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry
Losing interest in activities that were enjoyable in the past
Having trouble remembering the dangerous event.
Things that remind a person of the traumatic event can trigger avoidance symptoms. These symptoms may cause a person to change his or her personal routine. For example, after a bad car accident, a person who usually drives may avoid driving or riding in a car.

3. Hyperarousal symptoms:

Being easily startled
Feeling tense or “on edge”
Having difficulty sleeping, and/or having angry outbursts.
Hyperarousal symptoms are usually constant, instead of being triggered by things that remind one of the traumatic event. They can make the person feel stressed and angry. These symptoms may make it hard to do daily tasks, such as sleeping, eating, or concentrating.

It’s natural to have some of these symptoms after a dangerous event. Sometimes people have very serious symptoms that go away after a few weeks. This is called acute stress disorder, or ASD. When the symptoms last more than a few weeks and become an ongoing problem, they might be PTSD. Some people with PTSD don’t show any symptoms for weeks or months.

Social Phobia (or Social Anxiety Disorder) - Social Phobia, or Social Anxiety Disorder, is an anxiety disorder characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations. Social phobia can be limited to only one type of situation — such as a fear of speaking in formal or informal situations, or eating or drinking in front of others — or, in its most severe form, may be so broad that a person experiences symptoms almost anytime they are around other people. People with social phobia have a persistent, intense, and chronic fear of being watched and judged by others and being embarrassed or humiliated by their own actions. Their fear may be so severe that it interferes with work or school, and other ordinary activities. Physical symptoms often accompany the intense anxiety of social phobia and include blushing, profuse sweating, trembling, nausea, and difficulty talking.

WebMD also lists Specific Phobias - A specific phobia is an intense fear of a specific object or situation, such as snakes, heights, or flying. The level of fear usually is inappropriate to the situation and may cause the person to avoid common, everyday situations.

Per ADAA.org, approximately 50% of adults with AD/HD(which includes "ADD") also have an anxiety disorder.

Per aspergerfoundation.org.uk, a person with Asperger's Syndrome is especially susceptible to high levels of anxiety.

According to Clinical Psychiatry News, Hoarding behavior associated with traumatic life events More than 54% experienced more than one TLE (Traumatic Life Event), and the maximum number reported was five. A motor vehicle accident was the most commonly reported trauma. In addition, hoarders were more likely than nonhoarders to report rape, sexual abuse, and having witnessed a crime, according to a subanalysis of specific TLEs. Pure hoarders reported a significantly greater number of TLEs (odds ratio 2.27), Ms. Cromer said.

(Note: My understanding is that hoarding has been classified in the DSM IV-TR as falling under OCD, but my understanding is the DSM V will re-classify hoarding as a separate diagnosis. Some people who hoard have symptoms of OCD and some do not. Hoarding also happens amongst those with schizophrenia and dementia, and it also happens independent of other diagnoses.)

I resemble that.

Subscribing.

Heh! Well I have all of the ones on the list!!! My primary is OCD. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been life saving for me. It is, in my experience, the only therapy that can get to the both the root cause and the behavior to provide relief. That is not to say that I am cured or all better. I do though have the techniques that I have learned to help me when I am in an anxious place.

The CBT treatment of depression is very different than for anxiety and sometimes it is hard for me to identify something as depression and then figure out how to handle it.

Medicine is also helpful but without therapy it would be useless in my opinion. Medicine is what allowed me to actually do the Exposure Respsonse Prevention therapy.

One of my major anxiety downward spirals over the last few years has been invasive, obsessive thoughts and fears regarding my own mental health. When I read descriptions from the dsm, I identify with so many of them 1 some of them so serious. I've figured out that when I've spent hours combing through Ted kazinsky's psychological evaluation that what I need to do is take a pill rather than continue reading. It sucks because i'm fascinated by human psychology and it's a real area of interest if it weren't for the fact that I identify so heavily with everything I read.

I had anxiety for about 1.5 years. Ended up being the side effect of a med that didn't develop until after I'd been taking said med for 3 months.

Anyway - that was terrifying. I was terrified of everything. That I was going crazy, that I was going to lose my job, that I was going to lose my relationship (and I was working hard at making sure I'd lose said relationship), that I was drinking too much... any and everything was fair game to pull into the mix.

Just being in a situation where I was sitting at my desk - laid back and cool one minute and terrified of *something* the next moment. Not knowing what that something was but that I had to leave work and get outta there immediately or something very horrible was going to happen.


everyone suffering from this for any amount of time has my deepest empathy... it's just horrible.

Stores, expecially grocery stores trigger me too.

Maybe if you are in the back of the store, your subconscious knows you are away from an easy exit? Do you have any claustrophobia?

Sudden movements can get to me if I am triggered (I have PTSD, diagnosed first time in 1986). From the parking lot to inside the store, people move fast and in spurts. Sometimes they get in my personal space too. Often people scream at their children, or allow their children to use the buggies as skateboards or bumper cars. I often just have to grab the essentials and leave.

Another thing I have noticed, is that towards the back of a store the air seems stuffy and I get a slight headache.

Stores are often built like caves, and you can't see outside no matter how deep you are in.

In person, you seem task oriented like I am. I can see where figuratively jumping through hoop after hoop to get what you need, plus getting interrupted over and over might wear on you too.

I could go on....

I can see so many valid reasons to be anxious in stores. Lol.

:praying::praying::praying:

My anxiety has gotten a lot better - it seemed to be at its worst about 3 years ago. I have meds for it now but try not to take them more than necessary.

I think it's helped that I quit drinking, stopped reading the dsm and my environment has become more supportive for the most part.

Being away from the exit is a concern....

Mistly i feel like the air is being sucked out of the building

Today i have to go to a bug building and deal with US Customs....

Of course i hardly slept a wink

I've been working on making sure my home and work environments stew not stressing me put. I've been very anxious this spring. Burning. But I'm taking steps to make it better.

I don't always take care of myself. With a lot of help and encouragement I'm trying to do that.

Glad you are doing Nat!

Dee, that sounds way stressful! I hope all goes smoothly.

I have always suffered from anxiety but haven't tried to medicate it yet. I always have the "feeling of impending doom" and have visuals of my house burning up with my dogs inside because I left something on, or other things in that genre. Ugh, I hate it.

I also have social anxiety, which is weird because I am a professional communicator and it doesn't affect me at work at all, in fact people know me as super friendly and social and I am always the get-together planner, event coordinator, speaker at events, etc. I feel most comfortable when I have a role or a duty to fulfill.

If I don't, and have to go into a new situation or around people I am not comfortable around, ugh it sucks. But I hold it all inside and I don't let it show, which might manifest it more, who knows.

I need a psychiatrist. Haha.

I use to have awful social anxiety. It was so fucking painful! But over the years I grew out of it. I think what really helped was me moving to london and starting new in a new place with my then soon to be husband. Funny thing is, now I will talk to anyone. I just dont give a crap any longer.

I have anxiety when it comes to the bloody phone tho. Its not with talking to the person on the other end. It's dialing the number. It's like a mental block that makes me unable to punch the numbers into the fucking phone! It is starting to really bug the crap out of me!

Apparently i was stressing by the look of all those typos,,

i did good and it was quick,,

I think that identifying your stressors is probably the most helpful thing you can do (at least that has worked for me!). While I don't have terrible anxiety, I do get really stressed out when I feel like I'm losing daylight on projects or my never-ending to-do list.
Knowing this, I will do very simple things like prioritize things with these kinds of categories: things that MUST be done, things I'd like to get done, things that I probably think are important but that really aren't in the grand scheme of things, and things that I can do to help me accomplish the bigger items on my lists.

It's a simple strategy but it works for me. :)

I've started listening to meditations on audio dharma when I am anxious. Seems to help.

After a recent move, home situation is better than it has been in years. Work, a work in progress. Lol.