Anxiety. Far more prevalent today? Overused term?

[Miljah]

I barely open any thread on MN now concerning an issue someone has where they haven't used the word 'anxiety'.

I think of anxiety being a (diagnosed) disproportionate fear reaction that overwhelms your life like the Generalised Anxiety Disorder described on the NHS website.

Of course, I know that more or less everyone has the odd moment of fear- it's a useful thing, adrenaline kicks in, your fight/flight reaction; that helps you overcome whatever it is that initiated your fear reaction.

But I suspect we are trivialising the medical condition of GAD, as described in the link, by chucking the term 'anxiety' around so freely.

I was just reading about a young adult, first year uni, who phoned her mum at 4.30am because she thought she could smell burning; mother found the number of the Halls security and mum called it herself. And it was duly sorted out.

But people who asked why the DD hadn't begun to deal with it locally herself was met with 'Oh, daughter has anxiety'.... is that anxiety or lack of gumption?

Are we infantalising our youngsters by excusing such behaviour by labelling it 'anxiety'?

EVERYONE IN THE FRICKING WORLD SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME has been anxious about taking exams! That's not a mental health problem - that's a healthy emotional reaction to a high-stakes task!

I agree. However, my son didn't experience exam stress until teachers banged on about exam stress and remedies for coping with exam stress. He then realised that exams caused stress and he became anxious about them, and I suspect that he wasn't the only one.

All my describing exams as an interesting and challenging opportunity to show how much you have learned came to nowt.

Trinpy

You haven't read the thread, have you?

If you don't feel any exam stress, you aren't taking them seriously.

There's nothing wrong with my comprehension. I don't share your opinion and have explained why. I don't consider that picking a fight, but again we don't share the same opinion on that too.

I've only had a relatively small experience of mental health support services compared to SEN support, not sure which you're referring to in your scenario. But no one gets support just from bandying around the term anxiety in the SEN system.

Its hard to say whether it's more prevalent or just more understood/diagnosed. I do have GAD, as well as health anxiety (AKA hypochondria - which is not at all what people think it is). It's hell. I'm on medication. I do my best. Seeing so many others with anxiety is comforting, but I'll admit when it's clear someone is just referring to be rationally nervous or worried, it annoys me. I don't want people to think everyone with a diagnosed anxiety disorder is lying or overreacting.

And it took 3 attempts to get the mental health services to accept a referral for DS1 age 11. It was only after he started self-harming.

Totally agree with you OP, and most of the other posters. It isn't something I come across that much in my life in the real world, (through work either, not just my own family, friends and people I know), but it does make me roll my eyes when so many people on MN threads declare themselves to 'suffer with anxiety' and use it as an excuse for their behaviour or their unwillingness to do something. It totally undermines those with a medical diagnosis, and totally ignores the fact everyone feels anxious about things at times.

Dobbin "But no one gets support just from bandying around the term anxiety in the SEN system."

A reply: "I'm a teacher and I am sick to death of 16-18 year olds claiming they are too "anxious" to sit in the hall to do their mock exams with the amount of other student in there too. They claim they simply cannot do it and demand a small room away from everyone due to their anxiety. Yet these are students who attend festivals, parties, nightclubs etc with large amounts of people. Exams are not meant to be fun. They are unpleasant experiences for everyone, but it is a part of life and you have to suck it up."

HTH

"Mother's little helpers" were how tranquilizers were known for a while in the 70s? I think.

Sometimes I'm the one turning it around though.

Me: I'm really stressed about this interview.
Friend: Oh that's because of your anxiety.
Me: ... No it's because I'm a human being. Worrying that I'm going to get hit by a bus on the way to the job interview is my anxiety.

Can a person with anxiety disorder ever develop resilience?

BackforGood "It totally undermines those with a medical diagnosis, and totally ignores the fact everyone feels anxious about things at times." (my underline).

Yes. In a sentence.

That said the support is being demanded, not that it's given. I'm not at GCSE stage, DS1 was automatically allowed to have his Yr6 SATs in a room alone as he has an EHCP. He declined as he didn't want that as it would single him out and make him look weird.

HTH

My DD - had exam stress - to the extent that she phoned me before she had an A'level exam and I collected her from her friend's house in a total state - tears/anxiety etc. So bad that I was very close to just driving to our local "Safe Space" even though she didn't want me to (and I'm still not sure that it wouldn't have been better if we'd gone there). The next day her College wanted her to go in to see if she could sit her exam - all that happened was that she cried, and wrote a few sentences. They actually gave her a couple of breaks outside the exam room, but she just couldn't cope.

A friends daughter was given the opportunity to have "breaks" in her exams to help her cope with actually sitting them.

And these are not isolated cases.

But then back in my day I knew one girl who just stopped coming to sixth form about a month before her A'levels because of the stress - it was only 1 though. But lots more people went into work without A'levels or even O'levels.

God, Dobbin, you're hard work, aren't you?

You are banging a different drum.

But I understand why you absolutely won't accept that. I wish you and your DS well. Diagnosed, medicated anxiety is an awful thing.

But please don't fight me when I challenge the casual use of 'anxiety' as a catchall to describe any challenging situation to a given person. It causes (over worked, overwhelmed, over 'my child has anxiety, dontcha know, thus must be accommodated at all times, even if it means you overlook the child with the genuine anxiety disorder, in the class, to advantage mine, okay?'...) - teachers to eye-roll at your son.

Pick your fight.

It isn't with me.

It's your thread so I shall leave you to your echo chamber.

OK. OK.

Let me lay my stall out.

Again.

I believe that right now we are seeing normal, fear responses to potentially challenging scenarios being labelled 'anxiety'.

'Anxiety' has, or is gaining a protected status, as a word. Your exam facing daughter is no longer 'feeling anxious' (normal), she 'has anxiety' (protected term).

We are conflating the two. The first is pep-talk land; is, to cut to the chase (and not to have to type out the levels of it, again (as above)...) Get On With It- land.

The latter is diagnosable, treatable. But possibly might mean there is too much risk in encouraging uni and halls of residence if, when faced with a smell of burning (OP, I know, weeks ago...), her first response is to phone mummy at 4.30am.

IF she has diagnosable anxiety, she should have been taught coping strategies, in order to be considered safe to be there, ranging from 'living at home' to 'call security/the fire brigade'.

IF she just 'has anxiety', she should have been taught some coping mechanisms, aka adulting, prior to going to halls.

@DobbinsVeil both those posts were me. I'm not saying anxiety can only be how I described it. I am saying that feeling a bit unsure/nervous is not anxiety!

I travel the country frequently. I am going to a court I haven't been to before Monday. It's a 5h train journey away. I'll be in a hotel the night before. I do this regularly and still feel a bit ugh about the journey. But that isn't anxiety. But people are now labelling it 'anxiety'.

When my marriage broke up some years ago I had to take time off work because I was a gibbering wreck. Went to the doctors for a sick note to cover absence. Note said I had 'depression and anxiety'. I had neither - I was just incredibly, heartbreakingly sad.

I deal with kids who have anxiety, both diagnosed and undiagnosed, daily. And I try to deal with adults who refuse to accept that it exists and rage at these already vulnerable children. I don't shout, I don't get angry, I don't seek to terrify anybody into compliance. Strangely, I experience far better behaviour and pleasant, respectful attitudes from the children concerned.

I genuinely believe that those who complain about 'snowflakes' and a 'lack of gumption' or 'feel the fear and do it anyway' or 'get over yourself/grow up' would have been happily handing out the white feathers with tinkly little laughs just over a century ago.

Anxiety has always been something people have suffered from. It got young men, boys - children, for fuck's sake - shot for 'cowardice in the face of the enemy' and condemned on the basis of being 'lacking in moral fibre'. It got people locked away in asylums for the rest of their lives. It got a generation of women on Valium, Ativan and other major tranquilisers. They might have been described as nervy, fragile, delicate, brittle or, in the case of those so badly affected by it in a certain period as 'glass people' - possibly describing severe anxiety and depersonalisation symptoms.

It's always been with us. It's just that before recently, those people would have been locked up, died from other causes or been shot for their snowflakery.

I have two friends with diagnosed anxiety. With my very good friend, it's so debilitating for her it's heartbreaking. With the other one (who is really DHs friend) she told me when she was pissed that she says she's anxious when she 'cant be arsed' to do something. It's people like her who are the reason for some not believing how awful it can really be.

What I do struggle with is parents who project on to their children. A parent of a child in my class (I'm a teacher) told me that she hasn't taught him to tie his shoelaces because 'it makes him anxious'. If he doesn't feel like doing something he'll tell me that 'mummy says I've got anxiety so I can't do this'. Poor kid.

MitzaK : "I deal with kids who have anxiety, both diagnosed and undiagnosed, daily. And I try to deal with adults who refuse to accept that it exists and rage at these already vulnerable children."

I can't help that diagnosed DC still get 'raged at'. Or even undiagnosed ones (that hints at 'awaiting diagnosis' rather than 'don't have anxiety'....)

You "I genuinely believe that those who complain about 'snowflakes' and a 'lack of gumption' or 'feel the fear and do it anyway' or 'get over yourself/grow up' would have been happily handing out the white feathers with tinkly little laughs just over a century ago." (Did you vote Leave?' sorry).

So, back in the day, we did it wrong. The word 'snowflake' hasn't been used by me, FTR. Some would have been utterly destroyed by the concept of going to war. Some just 'didn't fancy it'.

You aren't understanding me. Like Dobbin.

This is beginning to exasperate me.

I think the term 'anxiety is being co-opted by far too many people when what they mean is 'Don't fancy that'. They do not mean 'crushed by the very concept of doing that'.

If you, or yours, genuinely suffer from a diagnosed/diagnosable anxiety disorder, does it not piss you off that every teenage exam fear, every 'finding my feet at uni'; every' I've fucked up in a relationship, again'- isn't just 'I feel scared, fearful'? Stuff that 'Man Up!' might get you through? But it's anxiety thus must be afforded the considerations of any SN?

SpiderCharlotte Thank you for re-centering the very basis of what I am trying to convey regarding the misuse of the word 'anxiety'.

I have GAD and it was misdiagnosed as a child, I was labelled naughty and it affected me badly. Middle aged now and finally getting to grips with life.

Ceefa2 Also a thank you to you. Even your GP used the 'buzz words'.

And I hope life has treated you better, now!