For others, like me, however, this nonchalant attitude is not so easily acquired, thus, this approach works to encourage people to face life squarely by "coming to terms with the risks of active living". For those who have the courage to accept life as it is, anxiety only strikes on occasions when their protective cocoon is temporarily pierced (the protective cocoon, as proposed by Giddens, is that which allows us to observe suffering and only be momentarily affected). Ironically, it is said that it is the freedom of life, the endless choices and responsibility required, that causes anxiety. It proposes that as soon as we initiate an awareness of ourselves as a living being, we become simultaneously aware of our inherent vulnerability and thus the possibility of death. The existential approach suggests that anxiety is the attempt to control and protect an existence which could at any moment be annihilated by death. See also: Learn more about therapeutic approaches to anxiety at Mental Health Today Wales in MayĬBT teaches you to sit with these feelings of panic, to learn they are harmless and that they will pass, in turn challenging the catastrophic misinterpretations and breaking the cycle.See also: Are we living in a post-stigma world?.This creates a vicious and seemingly inescapable cycle. The symptoms created by this activation will then confirm the sensation of fear, creating even more anxiety. The thinking behind CBT is that people with anxiety have become wired to instigate the biological fight-or-flight response by thinking catastrophically ("I'm going to be sick", "I'm going to have a heart attack", "I'm going to die") when a slight feeling of anxiety (whether that be a symptom or just a thought) is triggered. There are many supposed theories, separated by different disciplines, all of which I am open to consider.Ĭognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the most widely used therapy in addressing anxiety disorders. Something therapy hasn't solved, however, is the cause behind this state of irrational, all-consuming anxiety. helped me understand my unhelpful ways of thinking and rewire those thought patterns. confirmed and affirmed everything I had been feeling and thinking over the last thirteen years, and b. Seeing a therapist whilst at university a. My OCD was spiralling out of control because of the increased anxiety and my mood was slowly dropping. The concept of being four hours from home, having to attend busy lecture theatres, contribute in seminars, manage an increasingly heavy workload and face the pressures of maintaining a social life through drinking and clubbing, was simply too much. I was finally, officially diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder at the age of twenty when my anxiety reached an unbearable limit at university. These kinds of feelings, physical and emotional, have occurred hundreds of times over the last fifteen years, triggered by various things: being away from home eating out in restaurants being in busy, crowded places that I can’t easily get out of the stress of secondary school and sixth form in general, to name but a few… I now understand this bizarre sensation to be ‘dissociation’ or ‘depersonalisation’ – physical and emotional detachment instigated by the brain’s defence mechanisms in times of intense stress. #I have a pathological fear of being on my own tvIn my mind’s attempt to protect myself from the supposedly dangerous situation which was triggering so much anxiety I would glaze over and experience the most terrifying sensations of detachment - like I was suddenly dreaming or watching the world from a TV screen. #I have a pathological fear of being on my own fullMy stomach would feel like a balloon full of lead. I’d get so bloated from hyperventilating (gulping air) that I could barely move. I remember being on holiday, aged ten, and being in the supermarket feeling like I couldn’t breathe. At infant school I’d have to go into the dinner-hall before everyone else because trying to get through my lunchbox surrounded by the noise and chaos of all those other children was just too much.īut when did this, me being a typical anxious child, become me, suffering from a mental illness? Even sleeping over at friends’ houses I’d get this horrible feeling in my stomach like something terrible was going to happen. I’d go away on school trips and disturb the fun by being that child who is overwhelmed with homesickness. I was definitely an ‘anxious child’ – the kind that cried every morning before school because separating from home and my Mum was just too terrifying a prospect. I guess you could say I’ve always been anxious.
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