Anxiety is the new hysteria

It's a horrible diagnosis EUPD. Once you get that label you are assumed to be potentially violent promiscuous histrionic and delusional. Never to be taken seriously again. A huge proportion of wome diagnosed EUPD or BPD are actually autistic and have no PD at all.

I have had many things blamed on anxiety...
I have a diagnosis of EUPD, and that was blamed for a broken foot (I rolled my ankle on the bottom step)... not MH related at all.
I have seen the front page of my notes in A&E/GP/walk in.... and alongside my address and basics.. there is a line that says "Patient Alert - Personality Disorder".. like is is a fucking allergy. It doesn't even say what PD. And that is what I am up against.

I've got hypertension and have been put on beta blockers - so yes, still hasn't gone away even after having a pulmonary embolism and HR of 133 as well as the hyperthroid - obviously the "anxiety" diagnosis must trump them all.

I agree OP.

I’m under gynaecology as I’ve suffered from excruciating periods since I was 12. As well as leg pain, back pain, painful sex, nausea, vomiting, dysmenorrhea, low moods and irritability whenever I have a period. Which are extremely irregular.

I’m now 30, with no real answers. I’ve had a laparoscopy (which took 30 minutes) and the gynae said nothing found, just adhesions on your ovaries and you’re constipated. No further treatment needed. They are now just tell me to try different methods of contraception.

All this over the years, where I’ve had lots of time off school, work. Missed out on holidays and celebrations because I’ve been too unwell and in pain - have caused a massive amount of anxiety and depression for me. GPs have diagnosed me with both GAD and depression. Tried me on many antidepressants and counselling.

I’m convinced my moods are 100% linked to my gynae issues and perhaps a hormonal imbalance. And instead of investigating my physical symptoms further and listening to me, they just label it as me having “mental health issues”.

Sorry I’ve waffled on.

I think that is OPs point.

That women's complaints in the past were written off as "female hysteria", without being actually listened to. It's incredibly patronising and frustrating and, as you say, outdated.

However in todays world, the same is happening, but women are being diagnosed with anxiety instead. They are still being ignored and still facing the same barriers to getting appropriate medical attention.

And yes, YANBU.
Too many women are fobbed off as anxious and/or overweight.

Op you should maybe have led with that.

No. Hysteria was thought of as a female condition, connected with repression. That's certainly the Freudian understanding anyway. What we now describe as 'anxiety' used to be called 'nerves'. People would say "X has a problem with her nerves." Proust's mother, in Remembrance of Things Past, tells Marcel's father that it isn't their son's fault he keeps crying and can't sleep, "it's his nerves." I have the letters my great grandfather wrote home from the trenches in WW1, and he talks constantly about his nerves, and how he and the lads are trying to keep their 'nerves' under control.

I'm sure anxiety is a bigger problem now that it has ever been. People certainly experienced depression in the past, and I'm sure they experienced moments of anxiety as well, but the appalling, chronic anxiety most of us now endure is relatively new. I suspect it's partly to do with 24 hour news, almost all of which is bad. Overcrowding also plays a part. The world's population has exploded in the last century or two. Throughout the whole of human history it never rose above a billion. Then in the middle of the 20th-century it shot up to three billion. It's now eight and heading for ten. When I visited Venice last summer, my nerves were shattered. I felt like I couldn't breathe or move. There are just too many people, full stop. Even zookeepers know that animals become distressed when the cage is overcrowded. Plus, of course, the pace of life has increased. We just weren't meant to live like this.

I opened this thread to read and participate but your “Discuss” is so rude OP I will leave it at that. Have you never learnt social skills at all? We are not 14 year olds being set an essay title.

BPD is the new hysteria.

If you want me to do your homework for you, OP, you will need to pay me.

If you are genuine, the polite thing to do is to express your own opinion first, to show you are not a student/reporter/troll.

Bossy 🤨

This is literally me. Been ill for the last two months and one of the symptoms is a surge of anxiety that lasts an hour or two. Had one today, awful. Had a load of blood test yesterday so hopefully will have some answers soon.

Thanks for pointing this out.

In my experience, as a GP of nearly 30 years, it’s the opposite.
These days, many patients declare they “have anxiety” before they tell me any other symptoms. Young people almost wear it as a badge of honour, and embrace the concept. They come in and say “I have mental health”.

When I started working we’d rule out organic pathology with tests, and then be left with anxiety/depression as the possible cause of symptoms.
These days the anxiety is the starting point, and the clinical picture is built on top of it.

So agree.
A friend's sweet innocent dog was attacked by a horrible aggressive Romanian dog- The woman owner said ''I got her to protect meee as I have anxieteeeeeee'' and was being an utter wet lettuce, and had absolutely zero control of her horrible ,aggressive, off~ lead large thuggy mutt.

She refused to pay the vet bill -{Hundreds} again stating ''I have anxieteeeeeeeeeeeeee'' said in a whiney childish voice with elongated EEEEEEEEE's , despite being a grown ~ass woman in her mid thirties.

Such a shame the OP started as it did, because actually an interesting subject.

Despite more than 30,000 women being admitted to UK hospitals each year with a heart attack, a study has shown that women had a fifty per cent higher chance than men of receiving the wrong initial diagnosis following a heart attack.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/medical/women/misdiagnosis-of-heart-attacks-in-women

I know one who nearly died. She had obvious symptoms of heart problems and was dismissed by her GP twice. She ended up blue lighted to A&E while having a heart attack.

Heart disease comes above cancer as the leading cause of death in women. Symptoms being dismissed as anxiety attacks kill.

I think the OP is a journalist, possibly from the Daily Mail. That's how they operate for stories, by not telling their own first. It's just fishing for stories for an article people, don't reply with anything.

Yes!
I've had "anxiety" for years. It meant I was diagnosed with costochondria rather than the PE I had already been told I had at the walk in, after A&E made me wait 18hrs with no CT scan. They sent me home.
It actually turns out I have had undiagnosed hyperthyroidism and a very severe B12 deficiency. So, memory issues, ADHD symptoms, depression and anxiety - all the things they see first on your notes made me invisible to even have a thyroid blood test.

The blindness it caused literally nearly killed me.
Oh and I'm still unmedicated 1 month after they've discovered my hyperthyroidism, not that it causes clots or anything...

Way to be judgy.

I was someone who planned my own funeral (in my head not to the point of arranging anything). I was convinced I had cancer many times. Mine started after what was to me a traumatic experience in childbirth. I also have a history of OCD which probably doesn’t help. I also have an illness that leaves me sofa and bed bound most of the time and unable to exercise which feeds into the fear.

That said, I’ve never been afraid of medical appointments or procedures up until the last few years, which I absolutley blame peri for.

I also don’t think being able to ask Dr Google helps. And social media because all we see is “look out for signs of this”, this mum died suddenly from”, etc etc.

Yup. I went to the GP with chest pain, palpitations, dizziness, extreme tiredness, and chest tightness. He said hmm, I see you came in about anxiety 11 years ago, that'll be what it is. I insisted that it wasn't, got into a bit of back and forth with him and he made me feel like a hysterical eejit, he even said 'I don't understand what you are so worried about'. Mate, I'm getting chest pains, my heart is racing and if I stand up for longer than a few minutes everything starts to go black wtf do you mean 'what are you worried about'. Eventually 3 years down the line I'm diagnosed and am now on meds to try and control my heartrate.

Dh went to the same GP with chest pains, he was given some kind of spray incase it was angina and an emergency cardiac appointment less than a week later where they diagnosed him with a pulled muscle.

Dh has a long history of quite severe mental health issues, I went to the GP once when I was struggling to cope when dh was at the height of his mental health issues and I was single handedly looking after a baby and a toddler. Yet I'm written off as being an anxious fool who doesn't know their own body and dh is whisked off for a full heart screening 🙄