From Mental Illness to Mental Wellness Pt. 3-Anxiety disorders

Anxiety is a word all to familiar to many people. Everyone experiences anxiety in one form or another. There are many types of anxiety and all can be debilitating in our everyday life. I began to experience anxiety and depression as a teenager. As I got older, and different traumatic situations began to happen to me, my anxiety began to develop into other things such as Panic disorder and extreme anxiety. Last year, my anxiety went full blown after going through a divorce that I allowed to affect every aspect of my life.

I began to develop physical symptoms that became physically debilitating. Every morning I woke up nauseated and dizzy. My heart would beat fast and hard, it felt as though I was having a heart attack. I went to see doctors and even spent 1 week in the hospital after suffering a mild stroke. I had allowed this to begin to control my life and it was such a horrible way of living. Since I began my journey, I am slowly starting to learn how to control my mind and my anxiety, which I will get more in depth as we get closer to our cloud 9.

Anxiety comes in all forms, I will go over the different types of anxiety and the symptoms, as well as treatment options.

GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDERS

• Feeling nervous, irritable, or on edge
• Having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom
• Having an increased heart rate
• Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation), sweating, and/or trembling
• Feeling weak or tired
• Difficulty concentrating
• Having trouble sleeping
• Experiencing gastrointestinal (GI) problems

SOCIAL ANXIETY

• Causes intense fear of social interactions
• Driven by irrational worries about humiliation
• M ay not take part in conversations or public speaking
• Panic attacks are a common reaction to anticipated or forced social interaction

SPECIFIC PHOBIAS

•  Certain places, events or objects create powerful reactions of strong, irrational fear
• Most people with specific phobias have several things that can trigger those reactions
• To avoid panic, they will work hard to avoid their triggers
• Depending on the type and number of triggers, attempts to control fear can take over a person’s life.

PANIC DISORDERS

• Characterized by panic attacks and sudden feelings of terror sometimes striking repeatedly and without warning
• Often mistaken for a heart attack, a panic attack causes powerful physical symptoms including chest pain, heart palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath and stomach upset
• Many people will go to desperate measures to avoid an attack, including social isolation

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER

• Obsessions are recurrent and chronic thoughts, urges or images that are intrusive and unintentional and linked to the perception that something dangerous is likely to occur
• A person with obsessions can experience significant anxiety and distress because obsessions are usually unavoidable and unwanted
• Efforts to block out obsessions usually result in alternative disruptive thoughts or actions (such as performing a compulsive action to relieve the tension that an obsession causes)

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS

•  Reliving an event (nightmares, flashbacks, or triggers)
• Avoiding situations that remind you of the event, negative changes in beliefs and feelings, and feeling keyed up (hyperarousal)
• PTSD symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event, but they may not appear until months or years later
• If the symptoms last longer than four weeks, cause you great distress, or interfere with your work or home life, you might have PTSD

CAUSES

• Genetics.  Studies support the evidence that anxiety disorders “run in families,” as some families have a higher-than-average amount of anxiety disorders among relatives
• Environment. A stressful or traumatic event such as abuse, death of a loved one, violence or prolonged illness is often linked to the development of an anxiety disorder

TREATMENT

• Psychotherapy-including cognitive behavioral therapy
• Medications-including antianxiety medications and antidepressants
• Self care treatment-including stress and relaxation techniques

As we continue to explore different types of mental disorders, I will go more in depth about my life experiences and what lead me to start living life again at the age of 43. I am enjoying life in a whole new way and watching myself grow and become better everyday. I strive to see others accomplish this as well. I want others to know that it is never too late to take control of your life and create a better, happier, true version of yourself. Grab a hold of your life and create your future and take in all this world has to offer.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t-you’re right.” Henry Ford