Is anxiety nature or nurture?

[Doodlebug15]

Does anyone have any idea on this?

I've always suffered with anxiety and panic attacks and am so exhausted with constantly feeling this way, wondering if it's something I can 'unlearn'.

My mother has never been anxious/worried about anything in her life and whilst my dad is a 'worrier' he's never had a panic attack. Sister and brother also very laid back. So just me.

I did grown up with lots of domestic violence, my mum has beaten my dad since I was very small and I would regularly see him black and blue/purple but this was never (significantly) turned on me so don't know if my upbringing has an effect?

I've had years of counselling, CBT, mindfulness, etc and nothing helps. Medication fixes about 70% of it but comes with side effects (significant weight gain, complete loss of sexual desire) and I want to just be med side effect free.

Is this just my life/personality that I have to accept and live with?! So exhausted with constantly feeling sick/living on my nerves!!!

(Should add name changed for this as may be outing)

I don't this think you should underestimate the impact of that violence you witnessed. That's seriously traumatic to be honest.

I grew up surrounded in Domestic violence its not great is it I suspect a lot of your personality was shaped by that experience.

Anxiety is due to the home environment when the brain was plastic during early childhood. And the length of the 2 serotonin carrier genes.

2 long genes plus shit childhood probably means you’ll be ok
One long and one short with shit childhood, you will have some coping strategies.
2 short with shit childhood will probably mean a life time of anxiety and depression.

This is where l am. I hate the overeating from anti depressants, but l can’t function without them.

Bad childhood means you were on red alert. So your brain developed to look for any threat or dangerous situation, even when there are none.

Developmental trauma.

You're more likely to have PTSD than anxiety, which would be why anxiety treatments haven't really helped you. Anxiety is a side effect of being traumatised so you've effectively been trying to treat the symptoms not the cause.

Have you ever been assessed for PTSD?

The fact you would so casually throw in such a significant source of trauma as if it's coincidental is a little shocking, but also suggests to me that you've never had support or assessment from a professional with expertise in trauma for you to be unaware this will be the cause of your difficulties.

I did grown up with lots of domestic violence, my mum has beaten my dad since I was very small and I would regularly see him black and blue/purple but this was never (significantly) turned on me so don't know if my upbringing has an effect?

You likely grew up on high alert, shifting between 'stockholming' and trying to be invisible, terrified of abandonment, violence and the lack of control.

That you are underestimating this so much indicates that you haven't really understood its impact on you. Don't minimise it, please. Find a good/better therapist and tackle it gently, when you're ready.

Recovery from developmental trauma is possible. You're not doomed to a lifetime of suffering. But you do actually need to receive an intervention appropriate for developmental trauma, not ones for depression/anxiety.

Anxiety and some associated conditions have been proven to be hereditary , however environmental influences are definitely at play too. I think individuals could have a unique interaction of both, or possibly purely environmental/hereditary.
I think my daughter is strongly genetic. Very little has an impact and low environmental events to cause such anxiety.
Maybe OP it can be both for you as you identify hereditary and environmental factors.

I think your childhood had a lot impact on you. I'm so sorry to hear that. Hope you can find the way to make your life better.

Interesting.
My son has really severe anxiety - hasn't had any trauma/domestic violence/anything else to traumatise him.
Neither his dad or myself have anxiety to this degree. (I do a little bit now and again).
Always wondered where it comes from.

Really recommend you read Lost Connections by Johann Hari. Your childhood would have had a huge effect. Find someone to help you work through the trauma of your childhood. CBT is not great for that.

Judith Herman - Trauma and Recovery
Pete Walker - Complex PTSD
Bessel van der Kolk - The Body Keeps the Score

These all look at developmental trauma and the recovery from it. I would recommend the first and third most highly, they are very much evidence based, but I know lots of people find the second one useful.

@takemehometoasda

Developmental trauma.

You're more likely to have PTSD than anxiety, which would be why anxiety treatments haven't really helped you. Anxiety is a side effect of being traumatised so you've effectively been trying to treat the symptoms not the cause.

Have you ever been assessed for PTSD?

The fact you would so casually throw in such a significant source of trauma as if it's coincidental is a little shocking, but also suggests to me that you've never had support or assessment from a professional with expertise in trauma for you to be unaware this will be the cause of your difficulties.

I also read op’s post and thought pstd.

Some of the things that the evidence shows can cause developmental trauma are things like a mismatch in relational style between parent and child. Essentially because it means that some key needs of a developing infant/child are - unintentionally - not met.

This is similar to the mechanism that results in inter-generational trauma, where the parent's original trauma affects their behaviour so that the child also ends up with trauma despite not having had any traumatic "events" in their own life. It's not that the parent's trauma is inherited through genetics but passed on through all the ways it affects behaviour and relationships.

It is not always the big obvious traumas like DV that we might first think of when you say "trauma" that cause developmental trauma.

Are you still in contact with your mother?

Also, counselling is not a NICE approved treatment for trauma because it tends to make trauma worse and cause it to become more entrenched. It's actually quite a dangerous thing to do with a trauma survivor. If you had been properly assessed you would never have been given counselling.

You're not untreatable, you've had the wrong treatments.

I often wonder this myself op. Diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 15, now mid 30’s and still struggling.
Tough childhood, abusive alcoholic father, agoraphobic mother, who recovered and then slept around within earshot.
Bullied through school, left at 15. Physically abusive relationship from age 15, wasn’t allowed to leave my home for months at a time. Didn’t see friends or family for several years at a time.
Broke free from it all in my late 20’s. I’ve had CBT, medication etc, improved for a couple of years but now really struggling again.

I know others have had it worse and pulled it together so maybe it’s my brain that just cant.
Just wanted to say I know It’s exhausting, you’re not alone.

This is so interesting. Was just talking to my sister yesterday about a few good friends- lots of these replies make such sense.

Sadly, one of my best friends killed herself last August after a lifetime of anxiety, depression and many addictive behaviours despite years and years of treatment and medications. She had no obvious adverse childhood experiences or trauma, but reading these posts perhaps she had ptsd and the CBT was the wrong thing. Her father had poor mental health when she was a teen and I've always thought it my mind it may have been genetic. I only wish I could have done more, but we all felt unqualified and exhausted after many years. We're all still grieving, especially for her 3 children.

@Doodlebug15

(Should add name changed for this as may be outing)

I'm interested in why you selected that name - a flying bomb that people would hear above them, listen to in the knowledge that if it went quiet, there was going to be an almighty explosion, death and destruction indiscriminately wreaked upon innocents.

Quiet was the time to run and hide, not noise.

Is life pretty much 'quiet' for you since leaving your childhood home? And your learned response to quiet (expecting the explosion) is telling you that you're constantly in danger from an unspecified and unknown source?

My triggers are noise, lots of noise, mess, bright lights and anywhere I can't see what's coming/an escape route or I'm forced into close contact/within striking distance of people that resemble my abusers in some way. So completely different to yours? For me, quiet, being able to see or hear what's going on and knowing a way to get out if something happens is a safe environment - but for you, maybe that's the silence shouting danger?

Hi Op, I grew up in a house where there was lots of arguments and often spilling over into aggression (not always physical but quite scary).. Often between my parents but also amongst us siblings.

I believe all this left me with anxiety and insecurity. It has held me back a lot in life because although I recognise it I haven't been able to properly overcome it. So frustrating.

Wow, thank you for so many insightful replies ❤

The weird thing is I would never class what happened to me as 'trauma', thus would never have thought to seek treatment for it. I guess I assumed PTSD was just for people in war zones. The narrative in my family is that my anxiety is because I'm very 'self involved', so it's odd to see it from another angle.

Thank you @takemehometoasda for the book recommendations, I have just looked up book number 3 in the list and will be getting that, it seems fascinating.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow, that's so interesting, I had no idea such things were known about genes for anxiety, I'm going to look further into it.

@ahoyshipmates Yes, very much so, we see each other often. My brother's wife died of cancer 10 years ago and since then I have been like a mother figure to his little boys, if I were to cut contact with my own mum she would entirely cut me off from the rest of the family and I know I would never see my nephews again when would kill me. (It's a bit like the mafia here, you don't speak to the Don then the Don doesn't let anyone speak to you! 😂)

Saying you are "self involved" is really dismissive they are basically telling you to pull yourself together!

You’re not self involved, you’re scared.

That’s what anxiety is.