For people who suffer from anxiety disorders, sometimes just getting through the day can be a struggle because it’s always there at the back of your mind leaving you feeling bereft and exhausted. Anxiety, without treatment, can lower your quality of life significantly causing debilitating depression and the inability to function in even the mundane aspects of life. Generally, when someone thinks anxiety they think panic attacks but there are many facets of the condition that can manifest, here is a list of the five main anxiety disorders and their symptoms.
- Generalized Anxiety and Panic disorder: Generalized anxiety disorder manifests as constant worrying about everyday things such as bills, shopping, and social situations to name a few. This is an unwarranted fear of even the smallest things which can lead to depression and panic. Panic disorder is a similar to generalized anxiety, both cause unrealistic fear, with the only difference being that panic disorder doesn’t need a trigger, the anxiety just manifests for no apparent reason. In some cases, panic disorder accompanies generalized anxiety disorder, both are mood disorders that can cause the afflicted to have frequent panic attacks, which can be an extremely horrendous experience for some and more often than not will need mental health counseling.
- Social anxiety disorder: Also called social phobia, this causes the individual to have an extreme fear of social situations and may be the most common anxiety disorder. Extreme fear of speaking in public, embarrassing oneself, heightened self-consciousness and general social interactions are a few symptoms of this disorder, usually ranging in severity from person to person.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder: A little-known fact about OCD is that it can manifest in generalized and panic disorder sufferers and vice versa. This disorder is characterized by unwarranted or persistent thoughts including, but not limited to, fears associated with contamination, thoughts that you or others may be harmed if certain rituals are not performed, and persistent sexual or aggressive thoughts. In some instances, a tic may become apparent causing involuntary muscle jerks or spasms.
As much as the afflicted would like these symptoms to stop, no matter how hard they convince themselves, it never does, not without treatment anyway. In some cases, the treatment helps to where the individual is accustomed to having no symptoms and can ideally stop the medications without relapse, but then again others need to be medicated or receive therapy for quite a while if not continuously throughout their life.
If you believe you are suffering from any of these anxiety disorders or have anxiety symptoms you should contact a mental health clinic for evaluation and treatment.