Anxiety Disorders

The anxious mind

Anxiety is a psychological disorder. We all tend to get anxious at some point in our lives; waiting for a test result of an underlying health condition, results from a college examination or job interview; any number of things can make us anxious, which is normal in stressful situations.
However, people with anxiety disorders tend to worry about everything. The slightest issue makes them anxious. People who do not understand this condition may ridicule the person who suffers from the disorder, causing them even more anguish.

For a person with anxiety, the frequency and intensity of response to problems are magnified. A person with anxiety gets emotional and tense easily. They tend to have worrying thoughts which make them unable to cope with life. It results in increased heart rate, the rise of blood pressure, rapid breathing, muscle tension, nausea, dry mouth, frequent urination and diarrhoea. There are behavioural changes too; they tend to avoid certain situations and lack task performance. Anxiety disorders come in so many different forms, and they are as follows:

• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Panic Disorder
• Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Phobic disorders

The most common psychological disorder is GAD. People with anxiety disorders are affected throughout their life, while women are more likely to develop anxiety disorders than men. In many cases, anxiety disorders are considered clinically significant, which means that they interfere in a person's life, or cause them to seek medical or psychological treatment. Phobias are also a part of anxiety disorders.

What's a phobia?

phobias are irrational fears; be it a fear of an object or situation. People with phobias understand that their fears aren't natural, but their condition still makes them helpless, making it impossible for them to do anything about it. It's like knowing what to do yet being forced to do the opposite. All they can do is try their best to avoid the said object or situation.

The most common phobia is agoraphobia, which is the fear of public places where escape is improbable. Social phobia, which is a fear of being evaluated and embarrassed by others.
Specific phobias are fear of spiders, snakes, dogs, enclosed spaces, water, germs, injections, and heights. Phobias are mostly developed during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, but there is a chance of phobias arising later in life as well. According to the situation experienced, phobias rarely subside.

GAD

In most cases of phobia, they intensify with time. With frequent encounters of the said situation or object, the phobia tends to intensify, which is the reason they avoid such situations and objects. GAD is a chronic state of anxiety not attached to a specific situation or object. This anxiety can continue from weeks to months without any symptoms present. When affected by this disorder, it makes the person unable to concentrate, as well as make decisions and commitments.

Panic Disorder

Panic Disorder is unpredictable. Even when there is no identifiable danger, the patients can have panic attacks. This makes it terrifying as it can make them feel that they are on the verge of death. A panic attack can occur when the said person is asleep or wide awake. When it happens when the person is asleep, he or she can wake up, but find themselves unable to move or even speak. This is called sleep paralysis; the person is not actually paralysed but feels so. They fear that death has come to take them. This can be infuriating to the sufferer.

The fear of such panic attacks occurring keep them from leaving familiar surroundings; they often isolate themselves at home. Panic Disorder is diagnosed when recurrent attacks are not tied to any stimuli followed by psychological or behavioural issues caused by a persistent fear of future attacks or agoraphobic response. Panic Disorder emerges during adolescence or early adulthood, which may or may not accompany agoraphobia.

OCD

Obsessions, or unwelcome thoughts, images or impulses, often invade a person's consciousness and are hard to dismiss or control. This could make a person compulsive. As a result, this person will often repeat the same things; such as washing and cleaning, rechecking if the door was locked, or the stove was switched off over and over.
This helps relieve the anxiety caused by the obsessive-compulsion for a while, but not indefinitely. Being unable to perform this compulsive act can aggravate the person's anxiety, which can result in a panic attack. Therefore, it's best not to interfere and let this person carry on with their rituals. The onset of OCD starts when a person is in their 20's.

PTSD

PTSD is a severe anxiety disorder which occurs when a person is exposed to severe trauma. The symptoms are anxiety, distress and arousal that wasn't present before being exposed to trauma. This person tends to relive the trauma recurrently as dreams and flashbacks. The victim tries to avoid situations that stimulate anxiety by numbing themselves to the world.

This person tends to suffer from survivor's guilt, where he survived while others were killed. PTSD was first diagnosed in soldiers who survived the horrors of war; who had either been injured and or had lost their comrades. Civilians who had been subjected to war could be affected by PTSD as well. Compared to men, women's levels of PTSD is higher when exposed to traumatic events. The psychological issues caused by PTSD can result in other psychological disorders as well. Women have a higher chance than men to develop depressive disorders and alcoholism when suffering from PTSD.