Wellness Wednesdays: Anxiety & You

Many of us in this day in age are familiar with anxiety, whether it impacts us personally or impacts someone we know.

Anxiety disorders are amongst one of the most commonly diagnosed mental illnesses for people in North America. It affects approximately 40 millions adults in the U.S. and 3 million Canadians (we do have a smaller population guys), yet only approximately 37% of people seek treatment for it.

There are different forms of anxiety disorders including:

• Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): persistent and excessive worry about a number of different things. People with GAD find it difficult to control their worry and may worry more than seems warranted. To be diagnosed a person must find it difficult to control their worry on more days than not for at least 6 months and have to have 3 or more symptoms of GAD as classified by the DSM-5.
• Panic Disorder: people who experience spontaneous panic attacks and are preoccupied with the fear of a recurring attack. The key here is that the attacks are unpredictable and unexpected- it's what makes it different from panic attacks. Panic attacks occur unexpectedly, sometimes even when waking up from sleep. Panic attacks become a disorder when an individual becomes so worried about having another attack that they begin to make changes in their lifestyle to avoid a future attack. 
• Social Anxiety Disorder: an intense anxiety or fear of being judged, negatively evaluated, or rejected in a social or performance situation. This fear is so intense that they often avoid social or performance situations, and when a situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress or anxiety. They will experience physical symptoms, and despite being able to recognize that their fears are unreasonable, they feel powerless against their anxiety.  
• Specific Phobias
• Agoraphobia: avoid situations where someone thinks they will not be able to escape or find help. They will actively avoid these situations due to fear of having a panic attack or other anxiety-related feelings. 
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: obsessions are defined as unwanted and intrusive thoughts, images, or urges that cause distress or anxiety. Compulsions are behaviours that the person feels compelled to perform in order to ease their distress or anxiety. Some are visible actions while others are mental behaviours. 
• Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours: a cluster of habitual behaviours including hair pulling, skin picking, nail biting, nose picking, or cheek biting. Currently the DSM-5 recognizes hair pulling (trichotillomania) and skin picking (skin excoriation) as clinical concerns. 
• Hoarding Disorder: ongoing and significant difficulty getting rid of possessions regardless of their value and having strong urges to save an acquire new non-essential items, that if prevented lead to significant distress. As a result, the living space becomes compromised and there is significant impairment in social, occupational, and other areas of life. 
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: a serious and debilitating condition that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a natural disaster, serious accident, terrorist incident, sudden death of a loved one, war, violent personal assault, or other life-threatening events. Most people who experience such event will recover from them, but people with PTSD continue to be severely depressed and anxious for months or even years after the event. 
• Separation Anxiety: experience of excessive fears or anxiety concerning the separation from those that the person is attached to. This usually is a close relative, intimate partner, roommate, or friend. They experience constant worry being apart from this person, and as a result struggle with leaving places, physical complaints, and other symptoms that physically impact their life. 

Many people with an anxiety disorder also have a co-occuring disorder or physical illness (because you can never have just one, right?), which often makes symptoms worse and recovery much more difficult. Co-occuring disorders can include, but are not limited to:

• Bi-polar disorder
• Eating disorders
• Heachaches
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Sleep disorders
• Substance abuse
• Adult ADHD
• Body dysmorphic disorder 
• Chronic Pain
• Fibromyalgia
• Stress

More than a quarter of people who were diagnosed with an anxiety disorder stated that it affected their quality of life quite a bit or extremely, and stated that the most challenging thing was basic activities and work. In Canada, approximately 50% of people reported needing some sort of job modification to continue working because of their anxiety disorder! 

What does this all mean? That YOU are not alone. There are many people who understand what you are going through and are going through a similar struggle as you. So talk about it. SHARE YOUR STORY. You never know who it will impact. More than that it helps de-stigmatize your struggles. What you are going through is very real and even though it is not always VISIBLE, it doesn't mean it isn't there or hard to go through. There is a whole community just waiting to support you through your journey, you just have to know where to look and be willing to take their hand. 

Look tomorrow during Tip Talk Thursdays to see what some of the suggested treatments and options are out there for those who suffer with anxiety. 

References

https://adaa.org

Canada Anxiety Stats