ANXIETY
A Deep Dive into the Meaning of Anxiety, PART I
I’ve discussed topics connected to Anxiety. Worry, Panic Disorders, and I'm Scared of Death and Dying, yet I’ve not addressed Anxiety.
Everyone experiences ANXIETY.
What is Anxiety? Why does it vary between persons and even within a given person? Why is it so often disguised by the human psyche? Sometimes as fear, anger, rage, panic.
Is there treatment for Anxiety? I mean, is there really treatment. Is there a way to consciously diminish anxiety? Not by masking it with drugs or reframing it with psychological techniques, or cutting it off with surgical interventions. Is there a way to live anxiety free?
Place a person on a deserted island. Give the person plenty of food, adequate shelter, and no physical threats (or even discomfort), Will this person experience anxiety? YES. Why? Because the person is alone. But, What if the person is an introvert?
There are some people, introverted types, who prefer being alone. In these persons, it’s reducing uncontrolled environmental stimulation. If you control the stimulation, an introvert is less anxious. Still, introverted people experience anxiety when alone. Trust me. I’ve seen anxious introverted people who have achieved the goal of being entirely alone. And, they don’t like it.
See the recent article in the New York Times.
It’s the most sound-proofed room in America, or for that matter, in the world. Paradoxically, people struggle to stay in this room “alone” for more than 45 minutes. In fact, The Guinness Book of World Records keeps track of “longest times a person can stay in this room without anyone else present.”
Why can’t people stay in this room alone?
Absolute Quietness coupled with being alone, creates intolerable anxiety.
NYT: “COULD I SURVIVE IN THE “QUIETEST PLACE ON EARTH?” November 23, 2022
You can find an audio of this article here: Quietest Place on Earth
Does Anxiety feel the same across people.
Is the personal experience (or phenomenology) of anxiety the same for everyone? Do different people have different internal experiences of anxiety?
Psychologists study anxiety and they label it. In normative terms, anxiety can be divided into: STATE ANXIETY AND TRAIT ANXIETY. There are PATHOLOGICAL FORMS OF ANXIETY (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia), and NORMATIVE FORMS OF ANXIETY (ambiguous fear, anticipatory anxiety).
ANXIETY can be motivating if it’s not too intense.
If you think someone is breaking into your home, your first reaction is fear, but if it goes on a while and now you aren’t sure if someone is actually breaking in (because you only heard an unusual noise), you are experiencing anticipatory anxiety where the fear-response is cued by an unknown or unexpected noise. Is this fear or is it anxiety?
Is Anxiety the same as Stress?
The answer is Yes and No. Stress and Anxiety may feel the same, but stress, like fear, is connected to something (an object of stress or an object of fear).
If you are feeling waves of negative intensity roll over you at intermittent moments, a pit in your stomach, a feeling like you want to run somewhere, hide, escape, gloom and doom, no place to go, an abrupt disruption of your physical self, rapid breathing, profound sense that something is wrong but you don’t know what, sweating for no reason. You feel in harms way, but you don’t know how or why. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHY YOU ARE FEELING THIS WAY. This is a classical anxiety response.
Have you felt this before?
Some people believe all anxiety simply boils down to Fear of Dying. Sure, almost no one wants to die.
If you start thinking about your own death, and keep thinking about it, say, how it might occur, what you might die from, how it will feel when you are dying, times in the past when you had brushes with death, recalling other people you know who have died, watching people die or getting killed on television, hearing about dying on podcasts, going to a funeral of a friend or family member, noticing that you are getting older and physically deteriorating. You start feeling anxious about your own dying.
Dying is inevitable. The point of death is, in most cases, ambiguous. Death is a catastrophic personal loss of self. Whether you are a “True Believer” or not, the reality of dying is associated with anxiety.
Death and Dying is a prime example of something we imagine. The imagined prospect of dying can start the “Anxiety Ball” rolling. No one, including myself, doesn’t have some ANXIETY around the anticipatory prospect of dying. BUT, I don’t think all anxiety boils down to fear of dying. Why? Because other experiences, events, persons we encounter, generate an anxiety response.
PATHOLOGICAL ANXIETY
Truism: Anxiety is and will always be with you.
Fear (and anxiety as a consequence) is what makes you human and separates you, as a sentient, cognitive, reflective being from other primates. Some scholars believe that this is what sets you apart from all other animals. The underlying feature that drives anxiety is our imagination.
Let me say this again: The underlying feature that drives anxiety is our imagination.
Imagination can cause and intensify anxiousness. I will discuss anxiety and imagination later because imagination can also calm an anxious mind. In fact, I think IMAGINATION is the key to managing anxiety.
Anxiety, in a minority of people, gets out of hand. It can cause disability and, at it’s worst, immobilization. It can be a reason to avoid active living. It can in some people, and certainly does in some people, limit life experiences.
TRUISM: A person who is only depressed is unlikely to suicide. Depression + Anxiety increases suicide risk. I have worked with persons who have suicided, multiple times. In all cases, ANXIETY, has been a component of the act.
It is, for sure, a reason people seek professional help. Anxiety frequently gets tied up with depressive states. It can amplify depression and other psychiatric disorders.
Paranoia is Anxiety.
Let’s clarify the anxiety definition.
Anxiety Defined: The Cambridge Dictionary defines anxiety as: (noun) an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness or worry about something that is happening or might happen in the future: Cambridge has a secondary definition which is: something that causes a feeling of fear and worry:
The American Psychological Association defines anxiety as: an emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the perceived threat: Muscles become tense, breathing is faster, and the heart beats more rapidly. Anxiety may be distinguished from fear both conceptually and physiologically, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. Anxiety is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an APPROPRIATE, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat.
The American Psychological Association distinguishes between anxiety and fear. The critical word word “appropriate” I’ve CAPITALIZED. I take, in this definition, by conjecture that fear is (appropriate) anxiety is (inappropriate). If “inappropriate, Anxiety is not a “natural human emotion” You are born with a fear response, you acquire anxiety. Anxiety gets attached, early on, to the fear response, and therefore, the two get tightly linked.
What does this distinction mean? For one, fear is a part of our human make-up, you will never be free from fear because fear is biologically wired within the human system (see amygdala). In fact, fear, has an evolutionary purpose because without it you might not survive.
Anxiety is a state that may or may not be useful (likely it is not useful or “inappropriate”). Anxiety is the product of imagination. By this I mean that imagination comes from higher cortical functions bootstrapping lower (or reptilian) cognitive function.
How can this be?
The amygdala which is part of the temporal lobe of the brain is directly connected to “emotional salience.” Fear, joy, anger, etc. You were not born with anxiety, but somehow, in the process of living, the amygdala created a hybrid capability (with the hippocamus, hypothalamus, and thalamus)) to generate an anxiety response. It’s more complicated than this, but suffice it to say, you were born with fear, you acquired anxiety.
You are better off without anxiety.
What are pathological anxiety states?
There are many and classification of anxiety is complex. Why? The propensity of anxiety to be a part of most diagnostic labels. For example, Depression with Mixed Anxiety. There are seven categories of anxiety disorders. I’ve listed these below:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Social Phobia
Panic Disorder
Agoraphobia
Phobias
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
The first category is where most people fit
Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD impacts tens of millions of people.
It is an ongoing state of mental and physical tension.
Constant restlessness, irritation, edginess, or feelings of losing control.
Fatigue, lethargy, or low energy.
Muscle tension in the back, neck, and shoulders.
Trouble concentrating.
Obsessive anxious thoughts or "catastrophic rumination."
WHAT DOES ANXIETY FEEL LIKE?
As a therapist, I’ve seen hundreds of people who would be classified with the diagnosis of GAD.
In Part II, I will discuss further, what the actual feeling of anxiety consists of.
In Part III, I will describe a sure-fire treatment for anxiety.