5 common aspects of Anxiety which most sufferers’ experience.
Is it anxiety, worry, stress?
Whether we call it worry, stress, anxiety or something else, that sense of something being wrong or of constant fear is something a huge number of people experience.
Once that fear system is running there are a number of things that occur in the brain and mind. Here are 5 of the most common ones I’ve seen in clinic and in my own past with anxiety.
They might seem demoralising to acknowledge but the vast majority of people can turn anxiety around and overcome these things. I speak from some experience here as someone who suffered decades of severe anxiety before getting the right help to move past it.
1 Rerunning old stuff or planning imagined conversations.
It could be feeling bad about something from years ago that no one every mentions, thinking of mistakes we made, even just cringing at things we remember saying. We don’t remember other people’s past comments but somehow, we think everything we regret saying is etched in stone for other people.
We can also get the flip side of that, where we imagine entire conversations before they ever occur.
We run through all the problems, what we will say, what they will say and our ideal come-back to that.
We only do this though about things that feel bad.
We imagine people having a go or being mean and dig into those feelings to create the scenario. And then it usually doesn’t happen, or not the way we expected, and we are left with wasted time and bad feeling.
2 Sleep disruption.
Most commonly: lying awake with the mind going over stuff, unable to shut off and fall asleep.
I used to take about 3 hours to fall asleep between the ages of 15 and 37. I often wasn’t even worrying, just going round and round in my mind and unable to sleep. That’s pretty extreme but it’s common for people to take over an hour to sleep as the racing mind keeps us alert long after ewe need to be.
Some people experience it as waking repeatedly during the night or waking very early and not being able to fall back asleep. Sometimes the morning comes with a sense of dread for the day ahead and sometimes it’s just that we’re wide awake too early.
But we suffer for it later, dragging ourselves through the day, maybe unable to play with our kids in the evening or feeling drained and that we’re wasting our evenings.
3 Worrying about people’s opinions.
“Oh god, I said something so stupid!” “They’ll think I’m an idiot.” “They’ll think I’m odd”.
It doesn’t matter what we said or did, if the worry system is active, we latch on to something and the anxiety goes-to-town on it. We run it over and over and feel bad, cringe, regret… and then it moves on to something else the next time. Nights out go from fun to wishing we had never gone the next day as we overanalyse it.
It’s very similar to number 1 but we decide people don’t like us or imagine what they think of us. It impacts work, family gatherings, and so many other places.
4 Avoiding things – shrinking our world.
One of the most damaging aspects of anxiety is how it can make everyday parts of life feel bad and make us avoid them.
Things we used to be able to do, like going to a class, taking part in sport, visiting friends or family, taking the train or bus, or any aspect of life can get more fear filled as time goes on to where we just stop doing it.
Gradually parts of life fall away, and our world gets smaller. In extreme cases I’ve seen people for whom the world had shrunk to just home, work, and one shop, or even just stuck in the one room at home in some cases.
5 The big one – Just feeling not good enough.
That deep down feeling of “uhhggg – why bother” drives sabotage of so many lives.
Putting off courses, avoiding going for promotions, avoiding people and groups, there are so many parts of life where we just feel others are better than us, that we’re not good enough, or have a sense of ‘we’ll be found out’ if we try.
It’s a bedrock aspect of anxiety, found right across the board, but one that is rarely admitted.
Like all the other problem listed above, it makes sense when we understand that the fear system can get stuck switched on. When that happens, the brain acts as if we are genuinely in danger.
It doesn’t matter that we’re not, the feeling is real, and the brain takes no chances and starts to look for where that danger is coming from.
It analyses everything to see if we did something wrong, if someone is a danger, if we’re putting ourselves in harm’s way.
Everything is overanalysed, we sleep lightly and don’t fall asleep quickly, we worry about other people being a threat, we avoid places and things that make us feel more like we’re in danger, and we shrink our world using the feeling of not good enough. All these things get us to hold back and hide in some way. That is mistaken as keeping us safe – the less we do the less chance of accident or attack.
The mind is trying to help us, but it’s not interested in happiness – just survival, and it’s making the wrong decisions because the fear system is dialled up too much.
Sure, other aspects like digestive issues, panic, difficulty concentrating, catching cold after cold or sinus infection after sinus infection are common too, but in thousands of hours helping people overcome anxiety these are the big 5!
Anxiety expresses itself differently from person to person, but a majority of anxiety sufferers will recognise those ones as playing a big part in it.
Once we can find and resolves why that fear system is staying on – that’s where life improves.
I went from hiding from the world, unable to concentrate or study, always feeling in the wrong, having panic attacks in classrooms, to getting out there and enjoying life, running my own seminars in Dublin and London, traveling, and having fun.
Most anxiety is something I see resolve in clinic. In thousands of sessions of helping people I’ve seen so many people change life for the better.
Have hope. There are lots of people out there who specialise in anxiety.
Take the first step and reach out to someone!
Change is easier than you think!
I’m always happy to speak with people about how life can improve and can probably find people who can help nearby.
Have a great week,
John
info@JohnPrendergast
085 1313700
www.JohnPrendergast.ie
John Prendergast MA, MBACP, is an award-winning specialist in Anxiety and Psychological Trauma. His area of interest is the fear system of the human mind and body, and his work centres around reducing suffering for individuals one-on-one and in groups. He lived decades of sever anxiety in his own life before finding help and then studied with some of the world’s leaders in reducing anxiety, resolving PTSD, and living happier lives. He sees clients in clinic in Athlone, Ireland, and around the world via Zoom. He also delivers training to businesses and through seminars across the UK and Ireland.