What You Might Not Know About Anxiety: The Facts, The False, & The Feelings Attached

Whether you are familiar with it or not, anxiety can impact your life in many ways. -

Allow me to preface with the basics: anxiety is a part of the fight or flight response that is psychologically inherent in all human beings.

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When you are in danger, nervous, or feel in any way threatened, you will do one of two things: you will either want to run towards the danger and fight it, or you will be too scared and want to run away from it to save yourself.

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However as with everything that I think we have learned from 2020 nothing is perfect or goes according to plan.

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Symptoms and levels of anxiety amongst individuals throughout the past years have grown increasingly and drastically, especially with teens and young adults.

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People are experiencing more and more feelings of nervousness, uncertainty, indecisiveness, and self-doubt.

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Essentially, many of us feel in danger even when there is no present threat.

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The issue remains, that the adrenaline and anxiety must be exterminated from the body, resulting in panic attacks or general nervousness.

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Regardless of your personal level of anxiety, many people will see themselves experiencing certain symptoms throughout the course of their lifetimes.

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That being so, it is imperative to understand the very fundamentals of anxiety and the various effects it can have on your mindset, actions, and experiences.

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1) Anxiety Attacks Are Not Uniform: symptoms and triggers of anxiety can vary From Person To Person

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There is a stereotype associated with many mental illnesses that many of their sufferers experience the same triggers and symptoms attributed. However, many times with anxiety especially people can be presented as perfectly calm in their social environments while internally suffering from unimaginable conflicts.

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An individual can be suffering from an anxiety attack on the inside but on the surface appear completely fine.

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This could either be that their anxiety symptoms are normally this way or that they have learned to accommodate and hide them from other people.

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A friend of yours could be struggling with an anxiety attack but because of her experience with managing those emotions, she has decided that it is for the best that she internalize her feelings and instead present herself as if she were fine. This can come across as if the individual is being either quiet or a bit more shy than usual.

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In many circumstances, people think that others with anxiety have two alternating presentations of themselves that they allow to come out at specific times. This is completely false. Most of the time, those with anxiety adjust and adapt to the different settings they are in to best accommodate for the people in which they are with.

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Anxiety can make us feel as if the world is against us. When we start to feel this way, we begin figuring out how we can better please those around us.

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In doing so, we begin to change our actions and our demeanor in front of specific individuals or in entire friend groups or social groups as a whole. This means that our symptoms adapt overtime.

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Additionally, people vary from personality to personality; that being said, many people suffer differently than others.

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No one person is alike, therefore their mental illness is not necessarily like anyone else's either.

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If you know someone you know is struggling with anxiety but are unsure what their symptoms or triggers could be, do not assume that you can find them simply by looking online or through anxiety posts on social media. The best thing to do is be genuine, kind, patient, and authentic with the person in which you are seeking to help. Ask what they believe is best for them and what social situations in which may cause them anxiety.

- Create escape plans or certain signals to use when you believe that one is suffering from an anxiety attack or moment of extreme fear.

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When you establish these specific signals and specific bonds you make them feel more comfortable and cared for. You feel like less of a burden on.

- 2) Anxiety vs Anxiety Disorder: There Are Different Anxiety Disorders!

Another common misconception in this age of mass information are the broad ideas of mental health.

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Mental health refers to your overall mental well-being. Mental illness is a chronic ongoing disorder of disordered thoughts or emotions. Mental illnesses include Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Phobia, and other more.

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While you may be struggling with severe anxiety or symptoms of it, you may not be suffering from an anxiety disorder.

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Saying "I have anxiety" is different than saying "I have an anxiety disorder."

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Saying "I’m struggling with my mental health" is not the same as saying "I have a mental illness."

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In circumstances like these, it is best to consult a medical professional if you are confused as to whether or not you are only suffering from symptoms or if the symptoms are arising from an underlying disorder.

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3) Mental Illnesses Are Still to This Day Not Entirely Understood

The world of science is always evolving. The study of the brain and mind especially prove themselves to be enigmas and far more interesting and complex than we think.

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Because the human brain is not active after we die, researchers can only observe the human brain when it is alive. That is very difficult, as we cannot necessarily cut into a human skull and observe a human brain in action for the duration of an experiment. Therefore, it is almost impossible to collect complete information about the brain and its numerous processes.

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Scientists understand many of the neural pathways in the brain as well as locations and functions and locations within it. However, they do not know exactly where mental illnesses stem from in terms of genetics.

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Findings within psychological research are altered almost constantly. Psychology is a somewhat non-quantitative science, meaning that we cannot perform the exact kind of experiments that we would perform in biology or chemistry. Psychology is the study of living people and their living minds. whereas chemistry and biology study living and inanimate objects - gases, liquids, and environmental substances.

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There are many unanswered questions about the brain and mental illness specifically.

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We cannot allow ourselves to become consumed by all of these vague answers or seemingly endless blackholes. Instead, we have to focus on what we do know and work towards bettering ourselves to that capacity.

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Your brain is an absolutely beautiful and brilliant creation, but it is not perfect.

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Show yourself grace and kindness when you feel your shortcomings presenting themselves.

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Stay informed, and stay strong.

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With love & light,

Sofia F.

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There is no limit to our potential other than the limits we place on ourselves when thinking of potential failure.

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