To dislike the casual use of ‘I have anxiety’

[Sallytheseal]

I’ve name changed for this as I’m sure I’ll get a pasting but I’ve noticed SO many threads where the OP will not do something / expect special treatment because ‘I have anxiety’ and that’s the end of the sentence.

Anxiety is a medical condition and it should be treated. It isn’t a reason to just avoid things that make you anxious. For context, I had a traumatic delivery with DC2 and developed debilitating panic attacks. I saw a therapist, had counselling for over 2 years, forced myself to build tolerance (my fear was any separation from DC and I had to build myself up to longer times). It was awful but necessary. DH also suffers from diagnosed anxiety. He has regular therapy and is medicated. He still gets anxious but isn’t part of being a responsible adult getting treatment? I fully understand that doesn’t happen straight away, I didn’t seek help till DC was 6 months and I’m all too familiar with the state of mental health provision but if you already have the awareness that you have anxiety, and that it’s affecting your behaviour, then at some point you need to seek help or at least acknowledge that you need to seek help.

I hate when posters write things like, ‘I can’t confront x, I have anxiety’. I think it belittles people with diagnosed anxiety, as if they are helpless/ unable to change. Also, if you don’t have diagnosed anxiety, it’s weird to use the name of a recognised mental health disorder to self diagnose. You can say ‘I feel anxious’ which doesn’t co-opt someone else’s genuine illness?

I’m honestly not trying to minimise anyone’s suffering but I also don’t think it’s right to misrepresent a mental health disorder.

There are quite a few students now who have to do GCSE and A Levels in a separate room because they have anxiety. Isn't it normal to have some level of anxiety about exams? I think doing it in a separate room with one invigilator looking at me all the time would make me more anxious not less. As the invigilator I certainly find it uncomfortable.

I don't really care what level of anxiety people who call it so experienced. It is indeed personal and in the scheme of things, doesn't really matter.

The issue is people using it as an excuse not to do something or face change they don't like in the same way they would say they can't drive because they have two broken hands when actually it is more akin to not wanting to come to work because they have a mild cold.

@incywincyspiders

Have diagnosed Anxiety, Depression and was agoraphobic for about a year. While I hate to gatekeep, it is extremely annoying that everyone and their dog seems to say they have anxiety these days. When Infact they are just a bit anxious.

So, if you're anxious, what emotion do you have?

"Anxiety" has become the new "Oh I'm so OCD" because someone likes things tidy or "Oh god I'm depressed" because they feel sad. Depression, OCD and anxiety are valid medical conditions that need therapy and or medication. The more people use the terms to describe themselves having a bad day, the more people with ACTUAL conditions are not taken seriously. It's really annoying for actual sufferers who have had their lives put on hold by these conditions.

@bofski14

"Anxiety" has become the new "Oh I'm so OCD" because someone likes things tidy or "Oh god I'm depressed" because they feel sad. Depression, OCD and anxiety are valid medical conditions that need therapy and or medication. The more people use the terms to describe themselves having a bad day, the more people with ACTUAL conditions are not taken seriously. It's really annoying for actual sufferers who have had their lives put on hold by these conditions.

You can feel depressed without a diagnosis. You can feel anxious without a diagnosis. OCD is different because it is a diagnosis.

Can you really not see the difference? OCD is the name of a condition. Depression and anxiety are names of emotions, which can be prompted by specific events, and therefore appropriate and healthy, or unprompted, which means they are pathological and can be diagnosed.

What you're saying is tantamount to saying that nobody should be allowed to say they feel too hot, because some people are on fire.

@covidaintacrime

I'm sorry someone was unable to decipher what I said, calling it 'gibberish'; as opposed to saying 'I disagree, because...

A lot of it was unintelligible, bar the sweeping insults (mainly para 3, if you're curious!). If you gave it another whack, I'm sure people would start to say "I disagree because...".

In fact I'll say it right now. I disagree because calling anxious young women pathetic, (especially in the context of medical situations) is horribly unempathetic and rude. Maybe showing up was the maximum amount of "hoiking your big girl pants up" someone could do, and another anxiety-causing situation was too much - as is often the case when people have anxiety conditions. If you want to throw a few jabs at people who lie about anxiety conditions to get out of things / garner sympathy then I won't stop you and I may even agree. But frankly, anxiety is a debilitating condition and given 18% of people suffer with it, I think a little empathy would go along way (especially as a supposed HCP).

I think we can all agree that there's a difference between 'feeling anxious' and suffering from an anxiety disorder.

I am tired of the sheer, overwhelming numbers of particularly young women who cite 'anxiety' as their reason why they should never be challenged in any way, like to have a simple medical test that takes 15-20 mins and involves a small cannula. End of.

But they 'don't like it', they 'have anxiety' thus shouldn't be persuaded to undergo the test.

Over and over again.

People use medical or medical sounding terms to exaggerate and get more attention or special treatment over many causes.
How many really cannot wear a mask? I suspect only a fraction of the 'whingers'

One of my friends has developed this over the last few years, (not anxiety). She is so tiring to us. She makes conditions about everything, have had to disconnect and leave her to get on with her life before she makes us ill.
I think one of the give away signs about non genuine is "competitive symptoms".

Whatever you have she has it so, so much worse!

You are right that there is a difference between feeling anxious and having anxiety.

But in my opinion if someone feeling like they suffer from anxiety encourages them to reach out get help managing it BEFORE it gets to the point of being crippled by it, having panic attacks, not being able to function normally etc, then it's a good thing.

For me there was no definitive line in the sand between being anxious and the point where I was no longer able to cope. I remember convincing myself in the early days that how I was feeling was normal and I just needed to get on with it. I was a resilient person, there was no need for this. Gradually it got worse and worse and when the panic attacks and self harming thoughts started I just spiralled out of control, started drinking heavily to cope etc. I effectively hit rock bottom and only then did people take notice and I got the help I needed to claw myself back together and start on medication and more importantly, therapy.

I so wish I had sought help at an earlier point. Maybe I would have learnt ways to cope earlier and not fallen apart the way I did and lost so much.

Now if someone tells me they are anxious I would never dismissive them as lacking resilience or being over the top because you just never know what someone else is going through.

But so many of you are being unreasonable here. You are saying I had a doctor say I had X, so it's fine for me to say I have it. There are varying degrees of everything and people feel things differently. You do not know how people are feeling and if they want to label it, let them, maybe it helps them. What's it to anybody else? I also hate the fact that nowadays people correct people's wording of how they feel, do you think if someone's telling you they feel a certain way your thoughts should be 'oh you're working it wrong?' Be a friend and concentrate on the meaning instead

Totally agree with you @Eckhart

Anxiety is on a scale. Some people have a little anxiety, some a lot.

Just because someone doesn't have the same level as you, it doesn't mean they don't have it

@miljea I didn’t call it gibberish because I disagreed, I called it gibberish because the first part at least was practically indecipherable.

Perhaps you’d had a few?

OI see we have the usual crowd of deliberate misinterpretators making out this is a thread of people having a go at people with mental illness and not, in fact, lots of people with diagnosed anxiety disorders sick as fuck of people reducing their illness to not wanting to talk to people at school.

I suppose the other way of looking at it is that because there is more awareness and it's more socially acceptable if you like to admit to these things - people are more understanding and kind to people when they DO open up or explain they have an anxiety condition. I think in the past a lot of people had these issues but there was enormous shame in talking about them and if you did, people didn't understand or couldn't empathise because it wasn't talked about.

I think society is a lot kinder about mental health difficulties now. Not everyone wants to be defined as really "different" even if they do have a diagnosed condition. People talking about their anxiety at lower levels may give them empathy for other and may provide an opener for others to talk to them who might be suffering more severe forms. I think getting rid of the shame that keeps so many people being secretative and not being able to reach out or express how they are feeling in these situations is far more important than that everyone speaks in a totally "correct" way (whatever that is).

They think most people with OCD take about ten years to get help - that is a long time where the person themselves might not be totally aware of what's going on or that there is a name for what they are struggling with. If they can express that they have anxiety it's a start to opening up conversations about something that many can have great difficulty expressing, or speaking to anyone else about.

I think people are labeling themselves with problems too much now to be honest, no matter what it is. There's far more people with mental health and physical health problems than ever before now if we go by forums or Facebook.

Like people who say I can't answer phone calls at work, I have anxiety. Yeah I don't like doing it either and it used to terrify me, but I pushed myself to get over it. I think people give up more now to be honest because they can and no one will argue back at them, they'll just accept it. You wouldn't have been accepted for that a few decades ago, you'd have been fired.

There's a minority of people who actually suffer so badly that they can't do these things others say they can't do, or rather won't do. It's a minority of people who won't live a full life sadly. Yet others who are capable seem to want to join them.

I absolutely hate this. My partner has a horrible habit of saying “it’s just a bit of my depression” when he’s having a down/quiet day. I feel like it really invalidates how serious depression actually is. I don’t doubt that he feels fed up abs down sometimes but it’s poles apart from how depression really feels

Yes every time dick and Harry including celebrities seem to use it to explain away something - and similarly ‘it’s the OCD in me’ when someone keeps their stuff in check. I have had two bouts of OCD in the past and it’s debilitating and life limiting. I wouldn’t leave the house without my mom at one stage and I can remember stood in Tesco with my trolley in sheer terror. Sounds quite funny now writing it down.. it wasn’t at the time. It’s not just keeping the remote controls neatly aligned on your coffee table or your tins of baked beans in a neat row!!!

@user1471565182 We can’t even begin to imagine the pressures our youth are facing. They live in a world of constant fear of rejection and judgement because of social media and technology. It must be unbearable. Not only that but they face fears around climate change and pressure for being the generation expected to fix it. Look at the world leaders they have as role models! It’s a massive shit show. Anxiety really IS a problem with our youth. Our primary school has had to incorporate daily mindfulness sessions to help primary aged children with coping strategies because we can see that even our youngest are suffering with anxiety. It is real and it is a problem. Maybe they aren’t reducing anyone else’s illness, maybe they really are actually experiencing it too.

I do think that it is unfortunate that 'anxiety' and 'depression' are used both as the names of clinical disorders and as terms for common emotions. Everyone feels anxious or depressed at times, but not everyone has anxiety or depression as a disorder. And saying 'I have anxiety' when one is just worried about something trivializes the experience of people who really have an anxiety disorder, just as saying 'I have a broken leg' every time one bumps ones leg against something would trivialize the experience of someone with an actual broken leg. But I think that there is also the opposite side of the coin, where the term 'resilience' is misused to imply that people with mental health difficulties are lacking in some character trait called 'resilience' and are basically weak characters or spoilt brats. Mental health terms do get misused, and I don't just mean the obvious examples of using 'lunatic' or 'insane' as insults.

Isn't it normal to have some level of anxiety about exams?

SOME level, yes. But there are people who have anxiety so extreme - and not necessarily specific to exams - that they genuinely cannot cope in the usual exam environment. In the past, such people often just didn't do exams beyond a fairly young age. It wasn't compulsory. Not having exams restricted your career prospects; but they didn't close all avenues to you. Now everyone has to take exams from 4 ('baseline') to 18!

I think that if we are going to force everyone down a certain route, we also have to be prepared to accommodate some people's special needs and difficulties.

And, while some students doubtless do claim anxiety disorders falsely in order to get some sort of special privilege (just as they might claim flu falsely), this would normally involve either extending deadlines for coursework, or the use of the disorder as 'mitigating circumstances' when marking takes place. Not things like being in a separate room.

I have never been more than mildly anxious about exams myself, by the way, but I've known a few who really did have serious problems that way.

No doubt so

[quote Cam77]@Doublefaced
You should tell them the difference between “anxious” / “nervous” healthy totally normal feelings and “anxiety” which is shorthand for clinical anxiety and is totally different. I wouldnt ignore it. You could do it as a discussion rather than a lecture.[/quote]
Oh goody. I’m so glad some random person on the internet has told me how to parent. I’m sure you didn’t mean to be quite so patronising

@Cam77

You should tell them the difference between “anxious” / “nervous” healthy totally normal feelings and “anxiety” which is shorthand for clinical anxiety and is totally different

No, the difference between 'anxious' and 'anxiety' is that one of them is an adjective and one of them is a noun. The difference you are talking about is between 'having anxiety' and 'having an anxiety disorder'

What you're doing by commandeering a word for a normal emotion so that it can only be used for a pathology is pathologising a normal emotion. There's no wonder the kids are anxious about being anxious, really, if this is how the grown ups think.

The thing about anxiety is that in fact it is a normal human emotion which can vary in severity. And which can come and go given the right treatment.

It is another name for the emotion ‘fear’.

People get anxious because they are fearful of something. That could be something that is really obvious to them (such as fear of themselves or a child becoming ill) or something they are not consciously aware of.

In either case, the thing to remember is that anxiety (or fear) can come and go. It is not a permanent state of being. I can’t talk about depression because I’ve not suffered it like I have anxiety. I think in some ways it’s unhelpful to label yourself as ‘having anxiety’ because it can be something you don’t have too. I had anxiety for a couple of years but now I don’t. I can get anxious at times but it then passes. Like all emotions it can come and go. For me it’s helpful to see it this way as I know when I’m struggling that it’ll pass.

I believe depression has more of an actual chemical imbalance although I also believe that anxiety can come about via an over stressed nervous system.

So OP, I half agree with you (in that it’s definitely a term bandied about more freely today) but then again it’s harsh to assume only a diagnosis from a doctor or psychiatrist is a valid form or anxiety.

[quote Cam77]@Doublefaced
You should tell them the difference between “anxious” / “nervous” healthy totally normal feelings and “anxiety” which is shorthand for clinical anxiety and is totally different. I wouldnt ignore it. You could do it as a discussion rather than a lecture.[/quote]
Oh dear...

You can feel depressed without a diagnosis. You can feel anxious without a diagnosis. OCD is different because it is a diagnosis.

Yes you can feel anxious without a diagnosis. Eg “I am anxious about my driving test” or “I am anxious about the risks if catching covid” but “I have anxiety” is something different, it is not simply feeling, it is a statement of a condition. My son “has anxiety” but is currently not anxious about anything as he is in lockdown, doesn’t have to leave the house and the coping tactics his specialist taught him are working at the moment.

@Sallytheseal I agree. Also so many people that are depressed or suffering from depression. I have a family history of severe cases of depression over many years and it is not the same as just feeling down or miserable. Luckily I've never suffered (so far) but as you say it belittles those that actually have a diagnosed condition or illness.