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Living with an anxiety disorder. A thread:
Anxiety disorders come in all forms. GAD. Generalised anxiety disorder. Panic disorder. Social phobias. Specific phobias. PTSD.
There is a massive difference between feeling anxious about something normal and having an anxiety disorder. It’s awful to experience anxiety about things such as exams, driving tests, doctors appointments etc.
But these are generally one-off things. Not always, of course. But anxiety disorder is chronic. It’s something you live with day in, day out. And it can be debilitating and disabling.
It can stop you from having a social life. It can make you scared to leave the house. It can fill your mind with obsessions and compulsions and intrusive thoughts. It can give you panic attacks that have been likened to feeling like a heart attack.
It can give you traumatic flashbacks. Insomnia. Chronic nightmares. It can cause headaches, bowel issues, nausea and sickness, tremors, heart palpitations. Shaky legs. Rapid breathing. Shortness of breath. Sweating. Muscle and tension pain.
It can keep you up at night thinking about all the embarrassing and ‘terrible’ things you have done. It can make you paranoid that everyone hates you. It can make you scared that your partner is going to leave.
It can make you think you’re going to die. It can make you obsess over having serious health issues, causing you to check your bodily sensations looking out for anything wrong. It can make you spend hours Googling all the horrible things that could be wrong.
It can make it impossible to work. To use public transport. To have healthy relationships and friendships. To go out with your friends. To speak up when you’re being treated badly. To believe in yourself.
And one of the worst things? We have to deal with people telling us it’s all in our heads. That we’re being dramatic. That we’re overreacting. That we’re lying. That we’re making up excuses. That we’re bad friends. That we’re bad employees. That we’re making it up.
And then we deal with being fobbed off by GPs and the mental health services. Not taken seriously because ‘everyone experiences anxiety’. Put on long waiting lists and being made to feel bad by mental health professionals.
Private therapy is expensive so often we go untreated, relying on the SSRI’s the GP has given us with no extra help.
Anxiety disorders are serious, and they need to be taken seriously. It’s persistent fear and worry and our bodies going into fight or flight mode and feeling like we’re going to collapse.
Anxiety disorders can cause suicidal thoughts, ideation, intrusive thoughts, rumination. It’s sleepless nights and trying to get through the day waiting for something bad to happen.
We’re told to speak out but this comes with a fear of being shut down. So often we deal with it in silence.
Anxiety disorders need to be taken seriously. They are not a joke, an excuse or a lie.
Please be kind to those with anxiety disorders. We say ‘be kind’ when campaigns trend, but we need to mean it. Please, mean it.
