Anxiety about anxiety – Part 5

Why is anxiety so difficult to talk about? Or read about? While researching and writing the anxiety series of articles, I’ve had to wrestle with my own anxiety and self-doubt. Who am I to be writing about all of this? How could I add value to what was already out there? I’m writing about an important subject, one that touches me and touches many people I care about. That is how I got through the doubt and the anxiety. By remembering “why.” Did I add value? Maybe, maybe not, but the point is that I’m writing these articles from the point of view of someone living with these issues and coping as best as I can.

Did I learn something writing these articles? Yes. Definitely. Including more information on a few strategies I had heard about but didn’t really understand “why” they are important. Now that I do, it is easier to motivate myself to try them. I hope these articles will help someone else as well.

Anxiety about our anxiety can affect us, but also everyone around us. People usually feel either uncomfortable around someone who is nervous or who is anxious. Even bringing up the topic can be anxiety inducing especially in a work environment. It affects all aspects of our lives, yet we don’t usually seek help and are often told to “suck it up”, to “grow a backbone”, to “calm down, nothing to worry about here”. It might work for some, but for most people with anxiety, it won’t help and may make their anxiety worse.

The stigma around this and other mental illnesses can cause anxiety by itself. We feel judged by others. A lot of the research shows that women are diagnosed with anxiety problems more than men. Of course, I’m not surprised because the way western societies viewed gender roles. Men are not supposed to show emotions and showing fear is equated with being a coward, being nervous or anxious is also almost taboo. It seems to be changing though so that is good. I wouldn’t be surprised if this difference disappeared in more recent research. Learning to express our emotions safely and constructively (even the “bad” ones) will help us all live more balanced lives.

I believe understanding what is going on with our anxiety and keeping an open mind can help everyone manage these situations better and help alleviate the anxiety we feel about our anxiety. I know it is a hard road, when just talking about it is so difficult. Managing our anxiety is difficult enough without struggling with other’s judgment towards us having this issue.

If you don’t have anxiety, but someone around you does, it is important to help the anxious person notice when they are catastrophizing (going to the worst-case scenario) or ruminating (thinking about the same event over and over). It is important not just to tell the person to be calm and relax, or to tell them that everything will be all right. Why? The first, if they could be calm because someone tells them to everything would be so much easier, but it’s not that easy and the person can feel their emotions are not valid. For the second, it can work, and the person can be reassured but never learn how to reassure themselves. In a counter intuitive way, it can reinforce a person’s anxiety and insecurities even more by helping them to avoid facing what they fear and enabling their avoiding behaviour.

If you have anxiety, it is important to work on it for yourself. As people who are anxious, we need to learn to reassure ourselves that things will work out, will be all right and not always depend on others to do it for us. We will make ourselves miserable for longer if we don’t learn to do something in the moment. But don’t be afraid to seek professional help. If you learn to manage your anxiety, think about how freeing not living under so much fear can be.

At first, I was planning on ending my first survey into this topic after the four parts already done. However, because of my issues with writing some of these articles, I wanted to have a frank discussion about what it means to be anxious in our society and the reaction of people in general and living with an anxious person.

What are your thoughts on anxiety and societies views on it? I’m interested in hearing them. Is there something I didn’t cover on the topic in these 5 parts that you would like me to research? Please leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading and have a great day.

“We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.”

― Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos

Resources (not sponsored)

https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/how-to-overcome-being-anxious-about-being-anxious

https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/why-anxiety-should-not-be-feared

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/how-to-help-someone-with-anxiety