7 Warning Signs You Have An Anxiety Disorder

If you are a human being, you will become anxious from time to time. If you are an American adult, 18 out of 100 of you and your peers will have an anxiety disorder.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the US, affecting 40 million adults, and costing the country more than $42 billion yearly.

Treatment for anxiety disorders is quite effective. However, two-thirds of people suffering from this do not receive therapy, for one reason or another.

Thus it is important to figure out whether you have “regular” anxiety, or an anxiety disorder requiring treatment.

Anxiety disorder or just “regular” anxiety?

If you have an examination coming up, you are bound to feel anxious. Going to meet your future in-laws for the first time? You had better be a little nervous. Getting up to give a Powerpoint presentation to the whole company? I would be a little on edge. That’s real life for you. And that is normal.

Normal anxiety is good

No, really, I am not kidding. A little bit of tension, worry, anxiety before a big event fires us up. Stress hormones pour out into the blood stream, and these could improve our performance a little bit. But too much of a good thing creates problems.

So you need to be able to tell if you are wandering away from “normal” anxiety into the territory of an anxiety disorder.

1. What is the trigger?

In the examples I gave above, there was something which made you anxious. Usually, something big. Meeting in-laws, public speaking, risk of losing your job. We would all react to those.

But with an anxiety disorder, such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), you could feel anxious for no good reason. Or at least no good reason you can put your finger on. Sometimes, the fear may be imaginary. You could worry about losing your job, even if there were no realistic threat of that happening.

2. Duration

Most of us worry about making a good impression during a job interview, but we prepare for it, and move on once the interview is over. This is normal anxiety. It might help you perform well and land the job.

However, an anxiety disorder lingers, and interferes with your functioning. You could have feeling of dread, which could last for hours, if not days.

If you ever make it to that job interview, an anxiety disorder could prevent you from saying anything meaningful. You could have a panic attack as you enter the room, and feel that the world is closing in on you.

Many people with anxiety disorders end up missing work or school because of their condition.

3. Severity

By and large, the level of anxiety and fear, or panic, you feel as a result of an anxiety disorder is much more severe than “run of the mill” anxiety. Instead of being a little worried about an upcoming lecture you have to give, you could find yourself drowning in a sea of gloom and doom. Even minor regular everyday events, like running to the grocery store, could provoke unnerving panic.

4. Needless avoidance or fear

People commonly dislike insects, or snakes, or crowded places. However, in certain types of anxiety disorders, patients can have phobias or irrational or exaggerated fears. I would not like to be on a high cliff and peer down thousands of feet, but people with phobias might be scared to death of even mildly high places which pose very little danger.

Thus we can see people with anxiety disorders avoiding places or situations which an average person might consider as being “no big deal.”

5. Recurrence

A tragic event or an unpleasant encounter makes most people feel sad, anxious, and perhaps even a little depressed. At times, people would have difficulty falling asleep for a few days after such an occurrence. This is normal. However, in people with anxiety disorders, such feelings can recur as nightmares, or flashbacks, even after many years have elapsed since the original episode.

6. Awkwardness versus humiliation

Most of us have been in unpleasant social situations where we have felt awkward, or a little embarrassed. However, a person with an anxiety disorder can have a constant fear of being utterly humiliated, or being constantly judged, by others even under ordinary circumstances.

7. Physical symptoms

“Regular” anxiety or fear or nervousness can cause “butterflies in the stomach,” which most of us are familiar with. However, anxiety disorders are usually accompanied by significant, and often severe, physical symptoms. These can mimic the symptoms of serious medical conditions, and at times are worrisome enough for the person to go to the emergency room. You could have a sensation of your heart racing, pounding, or thumping uncontrollably. During a panic attack, you might feel severely short of breath, as if you were choking, and even have tightness, pressure, or significant pain in the chest. Some of these people end up being hospitalized and tested for heart disease.

Many people feel dizzy and start sweating profusely. Others have headaches and nausea, and cannot concentrate. These symptoms can be mistaken as signals of serious brain disease.

In a nutshell

Prolonged, severe, and recurrent episodes of anxiety/fear/dread, at times occurring without a specific trigger, and often accompanied by significant physical symptoms, which lead you to avoid certain situations, and which interfere with your lifestyle and functioning, are more likely to signal an anxiety disorder than “plain” anxiety.

Help for this is readily available, and is quite effective.

In a subsequent post, we will discuss treatment options.

Seek help, and reclaim your life!