You're just anxious, you dont 'have anxiety' stop it.

[GreenyEye]

Anxiety is a diagnosable medical condition.

Being anxious is normal, everyone gets anxious/worried.

Anxiety is when it takes over your life and affects your ability to function day to day, when it becomes abnormal.

AIBU to tell people to stop saying you 'have anxiety' unless you have actually seen a Dr or someone professionally qualified to diagnose it.

You're making it much harder for those of us with medically recognised Anxiety Disorder to be taken seriously.

Clumsily worded OP but I agree with the point you’re making.
I have had very anxious moments this year with physical symptoms. However I do not have an anxiety disorder - these moments were instigated by circumstances.
My sil on the other hand absolutely has anxiety disorder and she cannot live a normal life. She cannot leave the house during bad phases and has pervaded everything in her life and my db’s life. She has tried all sorts of meds and has been to casualty regarding acute episodes.
When she tells people she has GAD a lot of people will say “yeah me too I’ve worry a lot” which frustrates her because it’s absolutely not the same.

There's decent research showing that if you assessed everyone, about half would meet criteria for an anxiety disorder at some point. Most don't have a "diagnosis". So it's meaningless to try to distinguish the experiences of those who do and don't have the label.

It's every bloody thread these days

'My anxiety...' as an excuse for not doing something that anyone would find uncomfortable but necessary to do. It's just everyday life

You have no way of knowing what that person is experiencing. Some people have better, natural coping strategies, and others don't.

I thought we were all supposed to start being open about our mental health. This is stigmatisation in reverse and very ignorant.

There is a difference between mental health and mental illness, but mental health is often used interchangeably. We do all have mental health, and this can be good and it can also be bad a times. It is also very personal, and no-one can judge another's experience.

There's a lot of "hers/mine is/was a lot worse so that makes it more legitimate" on this thread. It's nasty.

At the end of the day, people ‘using’ and MH conditions/labels aren’t winning at life because they are the ones paying the price for limiting their options.

I have anxiety has the same meaning as I am anxious. No one is pretending to have an anxiety disorder.

I think people mistake the word "nervous" with anxiety.

"I felt very nervous before I made the telephone call."

"I feel really nervous about how it will go today."

These are now..

"I felt very anxious before I made the telephone call."

"I feel really anxious about how it will go today."

It's hard to explain but feeling nervous about something and actually being anxious are similar but different at the same time.

I think alot of the time people are just nervous or have "butterflies in their stomach" rather than anxious.

I sort of see what you mean but I also feel no one person knows how another feels truly on the inside and empathy costs nothing.

I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Something that helps me understand myself is the word 'proportionate'. Nearly everyday, disproportionate anxiety lodges itself in my brain. There has been no trauma, no challenge to overcome but my brain turns everyday events into mountains. This is disproportionate.

Some people (and sometimes for me) meet a time in their life or an event which causes them severe anxiety - a tragedy, a relationship breakdown, a new baby, house move etc. This anxiety is proportionate.

However, proportionate or disproportionate, it all feels terrible and offering support (in whichever way you can) is the kind and human thing to do.

Feelings fluctuate, life changes and I'd hate to dismiss another person's feeling just because my medical records say GAD and their's don't.

I agree. Having anxiety is like nothing else I've ever known. It isn't feeling anxious. Quite the misnomer.

The point is that anxious and anxiety are words that can refer to both of those things- worry/nervousness and a medical anxiety disorder. Look it up in the dictionary. I'm afraid you can't just decide that only one of those definitions is allowed.

I see your point to an extent. Self-diagnosis will result in lots of people well below the clinical threshold for GAD claiming to have this, giving a false impression to others about the severity/experience of it

That being said, you're gatekeeping a bit. Lots of people will have very high levels of anxiety but for their own reasons will not seek help. They don't need a formal diagnosis to vent.

Lots of people on this thread appropriating the anxiety label because they “feel” like they have anxiety. They don’t. The mere fact a person can function without medication and therapy, and “power through” their “worst days” means they are only a normal level of anxious.

I used to manage. For years. I finally went and asked for help and now have medication and my life has improved tremendously.

I don't know what else you could call what I have anyway. I have panic attacks regularly. In shops, crossing the road, on the train.

I get obsessively anxious about things, even if they're unlikely to happen (black death, say, or a tidal wave swamping my house. Embolisms. Whether I cooked that chicken throughly enough. Did I lock the door - and I've turned back to check after walking for half an hour. Did I just drink something in my tea that shouldn't have been in there - what was it? It must have been poisonous. I'm going to die.).

I can't sleep, my mind won't shut up. I go over conversations to see if I said anything stupid or embarrassing. I can relive things from years ago.

Just random attacks of worry about nothing at all. I'll just suddenly feel anxious - like I was about to go on stage to talk in front of a 100 people but haven't prepared anything to say. I'll feel like that just sat in my house watching tv, or reading a story to DS, or hanging the washing out.

On and on and on. And worst of all I get anxious about people noticing I'm anxious. So I put massive amounts of energy into trying to hide it as best I could and found it really, really hard to get help. Which took decades. Though I have been on anti-depressants in the past and they helped with the anxiety as well as the depression.

'it's so hard for anyone needing mental health support to access it - whether because they're telling themselves they should pull themselves together, or they are facing long waits for help, or they've had some help but it wasn't sufficient and have to go back etc'. This. If you don't have any kind of support network or advocate it can be virtually impossible to navigate NHS mental healthcare treatment, especially if you're in a state of crisis. Or perhaps a person grew up with undiagnosed depression/anxiety and no medical intervention, so learnt to adapt in order to get through life. If you don't have dependants or aren't an obvious immediate danger to yourself or others you get pushed right to the bottom of the pile. Not saying this is wrong, absolutely priority should be given in these circumstances, but it can mean people get stuck in the system for years without any real support.

I've been caught in a loop of GP - psychaitrist - counselling - back to GP so many times over the years. I estimate I've been on the GP's 'books' for referrals to various mental health professionals for around 6 years over the course of my adult life. The only treatment given was a 5 minute assessment from psychaitrist then counsellor each time (neither feel they can offer 'appropriate treatment'). Once I was lucky and got 8 weeks of CBT before being discharged.

Some people (and sometimes for me) meet a time in their life or an event which causes them severe anxiety - a tragedy, a relationship breakdown, a new baby, house move etc. This anxiety is proportionate.

I had some traumatic stuff happen as a child. Anxiety was a proportionate response to that. Problem is that response has never gone away, and since then it can get triggered by anything and everything to a disproportionate level.

My family is riddled with anxiety anyway, so I was probably at higher risk anyway.

I think it's important to recognise that not everything requires medical intervention. My depressed state was a normal reaction to the unexpected death of a loved one and it lifted naturally. If it hadn't, I'd need help.

Not needing medical help isn't the same as not being ill. Chickenpox is a temporary illness that doesn't generally need any medical intervention. Doesn't mean chickenpox isn't a legitimate illness. Also, out of interest, for what length of time should a bereaved person who is depressed suffer with the depression before deciding that it's not lifting naturally and they need help, would you say?

I don't think it's kind to judge someone else's anxiety as 'normal' or 'everyday', OP. You have no idea what someone else is going through or how their feelings/thoughts are affecting their lives.

Your opinion is quite damaging. I'd have thought someone who suffered with MH issues would be more empathic towards others rather than playing top trumps.

Just because someone breaks their leg doesn't mean their friend with a sprained ankle isn't suffering or has no right to voice their pain.

People get sad and down, it is part of life, in the same way that everyone feels anxious sometimes - often as a normal response to stressful events.It is not the same as clinical depression, where a person can struggle to even get out of bed and is having thoughts of ending it all due to feeling like a burden.
But depression doesn't just manifest itself in not getting out of bed or having suicidal thoughts. I went through a year of putting one foot in front of the other, existing, I got out of bed every day, spoke to people, forced myself through and never once contemplated not living. When I think of that year now I think of it as he'll and severe depression but not one person saw it. Someone might say they're depressed, how can you tell that they're just feeling a bit down? Same with anxiety, OP, by saying some people's anxiety isn't that bad, you're causing other people to second guess themselves

I’ve been diagnosed with GAD. I’ve also started having panic attacks over the last couple of years, although have never received a diagnosis for panic disorder. Largely I manage it, I am reasonably successful in a high stress job, I’m happily married with a child and mostly live a normal life. Most people have no idea that I have an anxiety disorder because outwardly I hold it together. There have been times when it’s been crippling. I had an anxiety disorder long before it was diagnosed.

So I don’t judge others who say they have anxiety because I have no idea what is going on for them.

I think a lot of people (not all, obviously) exaggerate things. Either competitive illness, as an excuse for something or just for attention/sympathy. Then there are those people who think they are qualified to diagnose themselves or others because they read something on the internet or saw it on casualty. I also think that the people who have a tendency to do these things talk more about it which gives the general impression that most people are making up health problems/diagnosing themselves and then running off to a and e with a grazed finger.

Meanwhile the people who have diagnosed health problems get fed up of the small (but loud) group of people who say that they are gluten intolerant when they just get a bit bloated after eating loads of bread or say they "are a bit ocd" when they just like cleaning. So now they feel upset and when people use the words "anxiety" or " meltdown ", which are actually ok to use without a formal diagnosis then they get the same reaction as the people who prang their car on a bollard are unhurt but then go on about how they were "rushed to hospital" and " nearly died".

Hope that all makes sense. I used to be able to write coherently but now I have 5 children and 2 cats. One child is climbing on me, one is talking about candy crush and the cat keeps walking across the touchscreen.

I suffer from severe anxiety (diagnosed) and have had people equate their nervousness about an event being the same and how what worked for them would work for me.
I also suffer from Chronic fatigue syndrome and a sleep disorder and have had similar comments re normal tiredness and sleep hygiene advice (like I haven't tried everything!)
But the one that I find most surprising is that having been diagnosed as partially sighted (fully blind in one eye and very poor vision in the other) due to optic nerve damage plus early onset cataracts I get people who know, who say, 'oh I know my eyesight is terrible these days' because they had to get new specs. And some of them have even asked me to help them read a sign - and I have to point out I can't see a sign at all. (even when I'm there with my white stick yup)
All these things impact my life massively but I understand that people's lives are also impacted, albeit sometimes to a lesser degree, by their own difficulities.
So I try to listen, empathise, then share a little of what my situation and the situation of other people who have major difficulities is actually like.
If you listen to other people they often listen back. And the ones that don't and make me feel useless, I stop wasting my time with.

Lots of people on this thread appropriating the anxiety label because they “feel” like they have anxiety. They don’t. The mere fact a person can function without medication and therapy, and “power through” their “worst days” means they are only a normal level of anxious.

This is absolute bollocks. What is 'powering through'? Still going to work? Exercising? Still having a shower? Getting out of bed?

After a traumatic event I was left with anxiety that would not go away. I got up every morning and went to work, because if I stayed in bed I'd never have got up. I started exercising because I knew it was one of the best ways to help it. But I was utterly numb, or furiously angry, and terrified that something was going to happen that I couldn't control. The idea of throwing myself off a bridge haunted my thoughts. I 'powered through'. It was not a normal level of anxiety.

Well that's one way to put people off consulting a doctor when they are a bit concerned about their mental health rather than waiting until it completely overwhelms them.

I get what you are saying op. Its an invisible illness and people with invisible illness have a hard time being taken seriously, without everyone jumping in a self diagnosing anxiety.

Carla at work likes to say she has OCD because she prefers to keep her notebook perpendicular to the edge of her desk. I like to say I have OCD because, without medication, I am rendered unable to function by constant intrusive thoughts mainly centred around imagery of the dismembered and putrefied corpses of my partner and children. It's not like she's trivialising my serious and debilitating mental illness. Oh, wait, she is. Just like people who say they 'have anxiety' when they are, actually, just worried, or a bit anxious, are trivialising anxiety disorders. It's shitty and selfish and you should stop.