Posted , 5 users are following.
Can people please tell me some mental symtoms for anxiety just so I can cope better
1 like, 11 replies
Posted , 5 users are following.
Can people please tell me some mental symtoms for anxiety just so I can cope better
1 like, 11 replies
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jmcg2014 george35290
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athol91131 george35290
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George, obviously we are not psychiatrists or professionals but we do have a lot of direct experience of anxiety states. There is a lot of wisdom and knowledge on this forum so have a look at other posts as well.
My own experience of mental symptoms of anxiety is:
1. mental terror and desperation. The brain becomes flooded with adrenaline. This causes it to speed up and become fragmented as the brain desperatly seeks out the cause of the fear. It will therefore come up with every possible catastrophic scenario that it can think of, death, cancer, heart attack are favorites. The mind becomes hyper-vigilant of any little change in the body and then exagerates it to its' worse case scenario. ie. spots can turn into terminal diseases, raised heart rate becomes a heart attack, a headache becomes a stroke, mental racing becomes a mental illness. This is because your mind is rushing about from one thing to another trying to come up with a reason for this feeling of anxiety. If it can 'diagnose' it as something definate then it believes it can come up with a 'cure'. So the mind becomes fragmented and panicky which can be very disturbing. The thing is - there is nothing wrong with you, you are just experiencing the effects of adrenaline in your body which we label 'anxiety'. The fear of fear. So you wont find an 'answer'. Therefore the mind goes on and on, endlessly going over what is 'wrong' with you. Endlessly watching for signs of an imminent attack. You may get paranoid and worry about what other people think of you. You may beat yourself up, thinking that you are lacking some moral value, like courage etc. You may think you are pathetic that you cannot get over this. You may endlessly worry that you are going mad. NONE of these things are true!
You are experiencing the effects of adrenaline in your body and that's all! Anxiety is not a mental illness, nobody has ever died or gone mad from anxiety. It cannot harm you, it just feels really really horrible and very very uncomfortable in the body.
The only reason it does not pass easily is because we become obsessed with it and think about how terrible it is, all day long! This is also why it is not a good idea to google any medical issue. Go and see your doctor instead. Thinking about how anxious we are and what a terrible thing it is to be anxious just makes us more anxious and produces more adrenaline. Bit of a Catch-22!
In short, when in an anxiety state, your thoughts may be strange, bizarre, scary, unusual, weird, frightening and detached. None of which means anything! These are only the kind of thoughts that are produced by anxiety. They are not true! and will go away when you come out of the anxiety state.Try to ignore them as best you can. They are nothing to be worried about. Distract yourself as best you can and concentrate on DOING things rather than THINKING about things. Get out of your head and into your body as much as possible. Even doing the washing up can be good (even if your hands are trembling, so what!). Exercise, meeting safe friends, playing music, reading a book, go for a walk etc. and just try to ignore the anxious thoughts AS BEST YOU CAN! Dont put pressure on yourself to succeed, or fight it, or achieve anything for a while. Be kind to yourself as much as possible.
(fighting and striving will just agitate your 'fight or flight' response and produce more adrenaline, being kind does the opposite)
Hope some of this is useful to you
Good luck xx
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