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.

Not everyone goes to the doctor and gets a formal diagnosis of anxiety. I didn't due to the stigma attached, however at my peak suffured panic attacks and high anxiety. I now live with anxiety. I went to the doctor when I wanted specific medication for public speaking (beta blockers). I read every book on anxiety possible and understand what I live with inside and out-more than any professional could. When I described my symptoms to the GP she didn't 'diagnose' me, I was so far beyond that and I was very clear about what I did and didn't want from her. She listened and called me 'brave'. I take responsibility for my own mental health, diagnosis or not.

Ps the stigma I attached to a GP visit is long gone, I don't advocate for that at all but it was where I was at the time.

Following a recent traumatic life event, I am certain I am now depressed. However, I cannot risk having depression on my medical record for future job reasons - so, not everyone can afford to 'get a diagnosis'.

Although I get where the OP is coming from.

Furthermore, you have to pay more for life insurance once you admit to various mental health conditions. Some life insurance companies deny insurance to those with depression. They talk about it like it's quantifiable. "How many episodes have you had?" One, one very long one.

Some people never seek a diagnosis, and that doesn't make their conditions any less real.

I wish my anxiety was fucking "temporary"

It's come full circle now for me.

After years of suffering in silence as s man with mental health issues, I finally talked to my GP and was subsequently diagnosed with anxiety and depression. It was a relief to find a reason why I couldn't cope with or cope in situations others could. I've lost many jobs and friends to it.

At first all the awareness and distimatising of MH conditions was amazing. I worked in a university and was fully behind disclosure and the 'Time To Change' campaign.

Then things started to tip over. No student wanted to do exams ,claiming anxiety and stress . It was impossible to counter, and the uni's health service became under siege from students who knew with one appointment, they could get out of doing exams.

Personally I don't mention it now at work. I see the eye rolls and whispers about other colleagues when it comes to MH. They feel that their colleagues are using MH for extra couple of 'signed off' weeks a year.

I'm finding nobody believes in MH conditions any longer...the empathy is fast disappearing .

Oh, I know. My friends and family love it (sarcasm intended) whenever they're late meeting me. Because the full blown panic and constantly ringing until I get hold of them is so much fun for both parties.

@Jizelle

I just try not to diagnose strangers and take what they say about their illnesses at face value, because I don't know their full story and I'm not entitled to. I also tend to credit people with the ability to realise that illnesses can have different severities, so I don't particularly agree that some people claiming to have it despite not having obvious symptoms damages the reputation of the illness itself. Then again, I don't think I've come across anyone claiming to have it since I was at secondary school. Maybe it's more common around where you live.

I have an appointment in just under 3 weeks (needed to fit it around work hours) with a doctor to discuss my mental health. I have never seeked help before.

Some of the comments on this thread have made me want to cancel this appointment, after all I still carry on my life. I still go to work, I still get up and shower in the morning. Maybe I should just get on with it and hope I dont break down at any point (even though in the past I have wished I could just so I could be justified in asking for help) Part of me wants to cancel, but part of me wants to see what a health professional has to say.

Maybe they'll tell me everything is normal, but Im really hoping they wont. I want some help, I dont want to feel like this anymore. Whether thats in the form of HRT (Im wondering if the cause is early peri-menopause - Im 40 and there are other symptoms) or something else I dont know.

Im currently keeping a diary so its easy to find what to say when I do finally go.

RTFT and it's clear that many people are suffering and trying to manage their symptoms without help and support.

No, you don't "need" a diagnosis, but please seek help if you're living with severe symptoms, it really can make a difference.

@rolytherhino I considered my unhappiness after losing a parent manageable and as it gradually lifted (a year later I was much better) I didn't need extra support. My Dad, however, did and took A-D's for a while. He too improved and is now remarried.

My anxiety, OTOH, went untreated for years until two years ago when it suddenly got worse and I was having regular panic attacks. Finally I sought help and can honestly say that my life has been transformed with medication and therapy. I just don't get anxious in the way I used to, but I wasted decades trying to cope.

Please, if you're struggling, seek help.

@RunningNinja79

Please don't cancel. Everyone deals with this in their own way, just because some people choose to cope alone, either because they can't or wont see their GP, doesn't mean you have to.

If you're struggling, then go talk to your Dr.

Part of my MH journey is learning when I can cope alone (thanks to my CBT) and when I need extra help because i'm spiralling to point that I can't pull myself out of it. I recently had to take those steps and find the courage to hold my hand up and say 'i need help' and just finished a second round of CBT (I had the first 10 years ago)

Your Dr will take you seriously and get to the bottom of whats going on for you.

I could never go to a doctor about my anxiety because of my anxiety. In case the doc thinks I’m jumping on the bandwagon or thinks I’m stupid and ‘everyone worries’. So now here I am at 1:10am wide awake worrying about a non existing appointment. But tomorrow I’ll be getting the DC sorted and off I’ll go to work like a normal person. Anxiety is awful and I think if you can ‘carry on’ it doesn’t make it less awful.

i have anxiety - and yes, YABVU.

Eenymeenyminyme people HAVE always suffered with these conditions. They had 'nerves' or were suffering with 'hysteria'. Women had menopausal symptoms and were put on Valium or put into institutions because husbands could do that so easily. Children with adhd were beaten into suppressed submission. They ended up with severe MH conditions and/or in jail. Dyslexics were just categorised as thick. Don't think for a minute that these conditions are now suddenly prevalent when they weren't before. We just have a better understanding of them. ....or some of us do...

I'm pretty sure people are allowed to say they have anxiety if they are actually feeling anxious about something.

No. That's like saying you have depression when you're feeling down, or have OCD when you're just fussy. It trivialises other people's mental health conditions and is obviously a manipulative measure to make your normal response to normal events appear more significant than everyone else's.

Surely "anxiety" is a very broad term covering everything from being typically anxious/ worried in a stressful situation, to a full blown Anxiety Disorder (which doesn't have to be diagnosed in order to exist).

Think of it as a Venn diagram. All those worth Anxiety Disorder have anxiety, but not all those with anxiety have an actual Anxiety Disorder.

I think the nomenclature is being misunderstood because "anxiety" is often used in place of Anxiety Disorder. People assume it's referring to (or trying to refer to) a specific condition when its actual meaning is wider. Anxiety is the noun to the equivalent adverb - "anxious".

Think about the actual meaning of the word "trauma". That has a very wide medical meaning covering a whole range. A slight graze can be correctly described as a trauma to the skin, albeit this is a very minor condition. It can also cover the devastating trauma preceding PTSD. In common language trauma seems to be used to refer mainly to the more severe end of the scale.

These terms have become sensationalised.

Dictionary definition:

anxiety

/aŋˈzʌɪəti/

noun

a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.

"he felt a surge of anxiety"

If anyone's anxiety with a small a impacts on them to the extent that they suspect they have Anxiety with a capital A, I would urge them to seek help from a doctor, mental health practitioner or psychologist.

I'm not going to lie. Seeking treatment or answers is itself a challenge for anyone going through mental disruption or pain. But the potential outcome is worth it for so many people. The journey can be rough though. I've had a variety of experiences over the years from being dismissed as dramatic to having a diagnosis of borderline Personality disorder.

My MH has always been iffy. I personally ( and I recognise that this is personal and probably isnt the case for many others) felt comforted by the eventual diagnosis of GAD because it explained me to myself, and I feel less alone.

On a practical level, it means that if I'm struggling due to my Anxiety at work for example, I can just tell my boss that I'm struggling without having to explain or justify what's going on. I am protected. This in turn helps me to feel better. Or less worse, at least.

Our current society is undoubtedly the least resilient it's ever been. This is because whatever we want to believe, we evolve in a much less stressful environment than our predecessors have.

We have also grown to strongly value protecting our children from any harm, physical, mental and emotional as a good thing to do as parents.

As such, children grow up to have very resistance and coping mechanisms to learn to handle difficult situations and believe that anxiety is a feeling to be avoided at all cost, favouring prevention over learning that being anxious is a normal phenomenon and that the more you are exposed to it, the less impact it has on us.

The damage that anxiety causes is when it becomes chronic and we have lost the ability to come out of it and replenish ourselves, usually whilst enjoying the positive outcomes that facing anxiety has resulted to. This state used to be mainly caused by intense experiences of stress and fear, but I believe that it is gradually experience by people who can't cope with any anxiety at all because they have never been gradually exposed to it.

It comes naturally to us to face anxiety. We seem to forget how physiologically anxious we must all have felt when we took our first steps. Some of us will remember the first time our parents let go of the handle of the bike, the first time we swam a length in the pool.

All this anxiety is natural, normal, and good for us. It is temporary and result in endorphins when we reach success as a result of having faced it. We are damaging our children when we constantly do everything to avoid them facing anxiety. Parents who do their kids homework because they are scared to tell the teacher they didn't know how to do it. Parents who get involved in dispute between kids because they don't want to be involved in confrontations, parents who lobby against exams because exams are stressful and kids shouldn't face that stress, the all concept of 'children should be children and enjoy whilst they can'.

The problem is that being a child is not so much a time to be free of all the difficult times adults face, but also and more importantly a time to gradually learn to face difficult times so that once they reach adulthood, many of those stressors will not be mountains to climb each day.

So I agree and disagree OP. I think that anxiety has been normalised as a mental disorder, when a lot of the anxiety people faces is anxiety that shouldn't cause them the trauma they are experiencing, but in a lot of cases, it is because of lack of exposure, and the effect of it is still debilitating.

It is a feeling. You cannot tell people they cannot express their feelings using the word anxiety, if they are describing how they feel then that is they person labelling how they feel at that time, or how they have felt.

Anxiety can also be the symptoms of a disorder. Usually where you find yourself in a state of anxiety that does not abate or is triggered so much that you are struggling to manage it.

The people who have a disorder do not own the rights to the language when people use it to describe a feeling.

You can have suffered from an anxiety disorder and not have much anxiety at some points. You can suffer from anxiety disorder and not realise. It can fluctuate

Saying ‘I’m so OCD or I’m so depressed’ is not the same and I agree it’s not ok

I have been diagnosed with the disorder. Although I have had CBT and mine is not debilitating to me, it is an underlying feeling now. Mine was caused by trauma. And I needed to deal with the trauma. Sometimes the anxiety is triggered and I might have a panic attack. But I can go months without it being an issue.

It’s ok for other people to say they feel anxious about something, it is a natural reaction to some situations. Someone would feel anxious about having a baby, but they might not have a disorder - but it would be natural to be anxious about giving birth, having surgery, starting a new job, singing on a stage. Anxiety isn’t always related to trauma, and it is a feeling that other people can and are allowed to experience without offending anyone. It doesn’t offend me. If someone is anxious then I know how they feel

My child also has diagnosed GAD (as do I)
So I do understand why people feel offended by it being thrown around and they feel it trivialises it somewhat.

But this can be part of anxieties grip in my experience, when you are so frustrated and feel so trapped and isolated. People aren’t meaning to trivialise it when they are just describing a feeling and I think it’s ok

I feel for anyone really struggling, I am not sure if I was lucky exactly... (as trauma) but I had a lot of CBT and MH support when I was a young adult and I think this helped me as it didn’t follow me into adulthood full blown.

Oooo I do love a good gatekeeping thread.

ooooo, I do love it when people cant rtft

I agree that there is a difference between feeling anxious (as in feeling nervous before a job interview etc) and having anxiety which often manifests itself in physical symptoms for no apparent reason at all. They are different.

'Anxiety' and 'depression' are just nouns. Using them as such is not like flippantly describing tidiness as 'OCD', or a normal tantrum as a 'meltdown' (both of which I don't think are helpful, and I am careful not to do). You can't redefine the nouns. It would be better to get everybody into the habit of using the clinical terms when describing the medical conditions - 'GAD', 'clinical depression' or 'major depressive disorder', etc.