Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a disorder where people constantly worry often without a clear reason. People who live with this disorder tend to catastrophise everything but their main worries are related to health, money, family, work or relationships.
‘I sort of knew that I was living with GAD for a while now simply because I seem to be more scared about stuff than other people around me are. Not only that, but I also overthink everything because I live in a perpetual state of fear‘ is what one of my clients explained almost in tears.
This happened to my client not because there’s something wrong with them, but because their childhood was not safe. They felt scared for their life for so long. Nobody was there for them to offer comfort when things got ugly. And even worse, their direct care takers were unable to be there for them in times of need. Their own care takers were anxious and scared so they couldn’t offer any reassurance to their offsprings.
Left to their own devices, children managed to control some emotions. Others however, hunted them their entire life and ended up controlling their actions and thoughts. I wrote about how trauma influences us in previous blogs as well. But I wonder, how many of us open up about this to our friends or family? And even more, how many would understand this?
GAD and childhood trauma
Whenever I work with my clients, I begin by speaking to their inner child. I found that our fears speak for the things we missed the most when we were children. If our parents didn’t respect us, we struggle with self esteem. In case we didn’t feel safe, we live in fight-or-flight our entire life. Some of us can’t trust people that easily because our first care givers did not feel trustworthy and did not give us the safety that we needed.
But as adults, these fears can become overwhelming. That part of us that doesn’t feel safe has slowly tipped the scale towards an anxious response to everything. People who live with GAD create scenarios in their minds that bring about the end of the world every few minutes. They are aware that their concerns are not realistic, but they simply can’t change the way their nervous system reacts. Many times, they are stuck in a state of hypervigilance and nothing can seem to quiet their mind. They are unable to relax and they often have trouble falling or staying asleep. Their nights become days and they struggle to maintain a normal life.
Symptoms
People with GAD may have excessive worrying, but that doesn’t stop there. They can also have other symptoms such as:
- Being unable to control excessive worrying
- Difficulties falling asleep or staying asleep
- Anger
- Easily startled by loud noises, loud people, when someone interrupts their thoughts
- Headaches
- Tiredness
- Muscle tension and muscle pain
- Sweating
- Shaking
- Fast heartbeat
- Nausea
- The need to visit the toilet more often
- Hot flashes
- Out of breath
Anxiety has many faces for many people, but in general, the symptoms listed above are shared by all those who live with this condition.
Causes
Now that we know a bit about how it manifests itself, you may ask yourself: where does it all start? Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a disorder where people constantly worry often without a clear reason. There is no exact answer about the origin. For everyone it stems in a combination of factors. For my client in my example above, it stemmed from a genetic source and developmental factors. But anxiety can also result from behavioral factors or extended periods of stress.
One of the factors that shocks me to the core is parental overcontrol. Nicholas Affrunti and Golda Ginsburg, published in their paper entitled ‘Maternal Overcontrol and Child Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Perceived Competence‘ that the ‘maternal overcontrol decreases child perceived competence and mastery, which increases child anxiety‘. The study is incredibly interesting and it continues to compare children from families with and without overprotective mothers. It is infuriating the percentage of children that end up dealing with anxiety because their mothers over controlled them during childhood.
Yours truly is an anxious adult and the product of an even more anxious mother and grandmother. Left untreated, anxious mothers ‘succeed’ to raise anxious children. In their adult lives, these children may or may not be aware that they also live with anxiety. Some adults turn to substance abuse, while others become chronically depressed. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the adults that break all the chains and decide to seek support.
‘Parental behaviors (e.g. overcontrol) not only are directly associated with anxiety symptoms but are associated with children’s self perceptions, which themselves are associated with anxiety.‘ – Maternal Overcontrol and Child Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Perceived Competence, Nicholas Affrunti and Golda Ginsburg
Treatment
Treating anxiety can be a complex matter and because I am not a psychotherapist, I cannot and will not talk about medication, one of the methods used for treating this disorder. Instead, I will talk about how I manage my anxiety.
Some years ago, I went into therapy and that is where my discovery journey started. I learned about how much my mind is controlled by past events. I also learned just how much I lived in fear. And outside of my therapy sessions, the real work began.
In time, I noticed certain triggers and I tried to keep track of those. If I am aware of the triggers, then it’s as if I give that fear a name. I write it down, I deal with it, I face it until it stops being a fear.
Bottom line
I’m writing a lot about anxiety because it is something millennials (and other generations) face every single day. Becoming aware of this is like unmasking a criminal. It now has a name, you can do something about it. It’s all in your power to decide how you want to go about it.
My goals is to unmask fears, name them, put them in the spotlight and treat them with as much exposure therapy until they become insignificant. Seneca once said ‘The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable‘ and it is my personal goal in life to live by this quote and to beat anxiety to a pulp.
If you also struggle with anxiety, remember that it’s all in your hands to make a change. Seeking for help is no shame. That’s where I started too.