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.

@Lemonyfuckit I think your post perfectly illustrates the point. Many people with mental health issues literally CANNOT wear a mask. Ptsd resulting from situations which involved restricted breathing for instance -wearing a mask might literally put that person back in a life threatening situation which gave rise to the ptsd. Not just thinking the thoughts or feeling the emotions. That person will be experiencing rape or whatever the trauma is in the middle of Sainsbury’s. I do wish people would understand this, this is not a choice. Therapy probably didn’t deal with this trigger because it probably was t seen as that likely this person would have to walk round with their face covered.

People claiming anxiety when actually they are just uncomfortable or it feels a bit weird and they’re a bit worried is not the same as someone with anxiety having a panic attack where they feel they are suffocating as in really feel they are suffocating with all the physiological effects and them have something over their face. People claiming anxiety are really having an effect on the wellbeing of others who’s mental health is being very much damaged by the rhetoric round mask wearing.

As I mentioned upthread if this pandemic had happened a few years ago I would probably have taken my life over the mask wearing

@CrotchBurn

“To me it's not right that so many people in the UK are walking around with a chemical crutch like this. It creates psychological dependency, but it also perpetuates a feeling of being a victim to their anxiety, because the root cause is never tackled or (where possible) eliminated. And because people dont learn to cope, because they have the option of taking their pills.“

All these people walking around with their blood pressure meds, and insulin, and cholesterol pills, these chemical crutches! It’s terrible, they need to get off them. Do you see how that sounds? Good for you if you managed to get off your pills! Not everybody is you! Stop it, just stop it! I’m not a victim, any more than a diabetic is a victim. I’m a person with an illness.

Yes I think it is overused....but then there are people who genuinely suffer with it and it is soul destroying seeing them suffer

Resilience is a tricky one. I 'have' anxiety, and I can and do push myself to do things I'm uncomfortable with and just live my life. I always remember getting really worked up at an appointment with a nurse about some test and her being surprised that I was in employment. In fact, I've never missed so much as a single day of work due to anxiety - thankfully it's not so bad that I simply can't work.

But pushing yourself to do things is draining of energy, so I do find myself taking the easy option when the thing in question isn't really worth the effort. I read an analogy a few years ago by someone with a physical illness about how their condition meant they had so many tokens at the start of the day and each thing they did took some away. Do enough things and no tokens were left.

So it's not a case of just caving into anxiety or being able to push through. It's a balancing act. Someone may not feel up to doing something that seems very trivial because they've put all their energies into life in general. Which can be exhausting even when everything is going swimmingly when you have, I find.

@Matildalamp - yes. I don't see myself as being a victim just because I acknowledge that I have anxiety (mainly in the form of OCD in my case). It's simply a fact of life, like having asthma or diabetes.

I'm not sure how it would improve things for me to deny there was an issue and brush it off as just a normal emotion as some posts on here suggest anything less than being totally incapacitated is.

[quote Ihatefish]@Lemonyfuckit I think your post perfectly illustrates the point. Many people with mental health issues literally CANNOT wear a mask. Ptsd resulting from situations which involved restricted breathing for instance -wearing a mask might literally put that person back in a life threatening situation which gave rise to the ptsd. Not just thinking the thoughts or feeling the emotions. That person will be experiencing rape or whatever the trauma is in the middle of Sainsbury’s. I do wish people would understand this, this is not a choice. Therapy probably didn’t deal with this trigger because it probably was t seen as that likely this person would have to walk round with their face covered.

People claiming anxiety when actually they are just uncomfortable or it feels a bit weird and they’re a bit worried is not the same as someone with anxiety having a panic attack where they feel they are suffocating as in really feel they are suffocating with all the physiological effects and them have something over their face. People claiming anxiety are really having an effect on the wellbeing of others who’s mental health is being very much damaged by the rhetoric round mask wearing.

As I mentioned upthread if this pandemic had happened a few years ago I would probably have taken my life over the mask wearing[/quote]
Thought they tend to be ok wearing an oxygen mask when it becomes necessary...

mango they quite often don’t .

Working on a HDU we had a lot of very combative patients who were scared . Trying to keep O2 on some people who were scared, had LDs or dementia, or trauma was awful .

As a patient I had a reaction to a procedure once and I remember being utterly terrified of the oxygen mask . Screaming and thrashing around the bed . That was because I’d nearly died as a child from suffocating .

So it isn’t always the case that patients are fine with masks - at all !! Those that are are often sedated and ventilated sadly !

Totally agree. Twenty years ago I had diagnosed and treated anxiety. I might be ‘prone’ to anxiety now but I don’t say I have it now. It was the worst time in my life.

@furrabootswisye

mango they quite often don’t .

Working on a HDU we had a lot of very combative patients who were scared . Trying to keep O2 on some people who were scared, had LDs or dementia, or trauma was awful .

As a patient I had a reaction to a procedure once and I remember being utterly terrified of the oxygen mask . Screaming and thrashing around the bed . That was because I’d nearly died as a child from suffocating .

So it isn’t always the case that patients are fine with masks - at all !! Those that are are often sedated and ventilated sadly !

My experience is rather different. Though agree about the confused ones..

The only time I wore an oxygen mask, I had a panic attack. It wasn't a really bad one, but heavy breathing, tears and numb feet were involved. Obviously if it's a life or death situation, I would hope I don't have another one but with GAD who the fuck knows what's going to happen.

I am just so grateful for everyone’s varied experiences. Truly it’s part of human experience. I think we get the full range of emotions but at different times in our lives. The person with no empathy for the terror of anxiety may well experience it eventually and gain some understanding rather like the dreaded grief or extreme pain. I just feel it’s better out in the open then the hideous thing of pretending your coping when perhaps something might help lift the burden. Facing fear is torture and mentally exhausting part of the human condition but whatever triggers, enables it it’s best tackled with evolved human understanding not judgement. Why do people sneer at weakness. The worst was the putting big girl pants on narrative seriously I think that theory is pants. Anyone out there facing the challenge and absurd nature of mental illness needs absolute compassion the imagination gets quite creative when its sending off alarm signals. Your stronger for having been there because you’ve died a hundred times. I was in a car accident once on a motorway spinning in the wrong direction on impact and it was nothing as bad as a panic attacks I have experienced . Your not mentally weak. Your mentally strong . Your imagination is strong, your flight or fright is strong . Adrenaline too strong burn it off! Your rationale is good. It’s just out of balance or triggered . People that are worriers or anxious or have mental health conditions are not weak. They are just carrying a burden you’ll be glad to be free of. It’s linked in with that taboo not being able to show ‘ weakness’ that feeds the fear it really does.

[quote Ihatefish]@Lemonyfuckit I think your post perfectly illustrates the point. Many people with mental health issues literally CANNOT wear a mask. Ptsd resulting from situations which involved restricted breathing for instance -wearing a mask might literally put that person back in a life threatening situation which gave rise to the ptsd. Not just thinking the thoughts or feeling the emotions. That person will be experiencing rape or whatever the trauma is in the middle of Sainsbury’s. I do wish people would understand this, this is not a choice. Therapy probably didn’t deal with this trigger because it probably was t seen as that likely this person would have to walk round with their face covered.

People claiming anxiety when actually they are just uncomfortable or it feels a bit weird and they’re a bit worried is not the same as someone with anxiety having a panic attack where they feel they are suffocating as in really feel they are suffocating with all the physiological effects and them have something over their face. People claiming anxiety are really having an effect on the wellbeing of others who’s mental health is being very much damaged by the rhetoric round mask wearing.

As I mentioned upthread if this pandemic had happened a few years ago I would probably have taken my life over the mask wearing[/quote]
I agree that some people can't wear masks because of serious mental or physical illness (PTSD included) but in that situation I think they should be provided with priority online delivery slots just like the extremely vulnerable.

I cannot shop due to my condition (not because I can't wear a mask but for other reasons) and I'm lucky enough to have someone who can shop for me; if I didn't I would order online (I can't even click and collect).

@Lovely1a2b3c priority deliveries would be good, but as usual mental illness counts for nothing.

It also is not really the answer though, successfully managing mental illness is something that means you don’t just shut yourself away. That is so so damaging. You need to get out and about, doing everyday things like shopping.

Added to that the difficulty in actually getting diagnosed. Ptsd for instance needs a psychiatrist to diagnose (not necessarily to treat). Many people go undiagnosed and untreated for years due to stigma and lack of access to mental health services. I was very fortunate in having private health. It’s only in the last couple of years there’s been an acceptance from the wider public that people who weren’t veterans actually fit ptsd and this is still be no means universal. People might never have spoken about abuse leading to complex ptsd, rape or DV leading to ptsd. So remain without official diagnosis.

There are so many illnesses apart from covid, even with vaccines covid won’t disappear we need to learn how these can co exist, I know someone with terminal cancer, teenage kids there’s a treatment that will give her an extra few years so her kids will be adults. She’s been denied life prolonging treatment because covid. It’s like the world has gone mad about one disease and no other problems exist anymore.

I kmow someone who will be an absolute bitch to people and then when she pulled up on it she says 'oh it was my anxiety talking'

@Mango101 this just goes to prove how different everyone can be. I once sat at home with a fractured ankle for a week because I was prettified of going to hospital because of my ptsd, I had a screaming breakdown in the middle of a&e. It took 3 attempts to get me into X-ray. In the end they had to treat me in the children’s play area they closed off because I couldn’t go into a cubicle. If I had needed oxygen then would most certainly have had to sedate me. Much will depend on the nature of the trauma and any co existing issues. Reactions like this are NOT a choice. Even getting out of breath during exercise can be majorly triggering,

I could probably cope with these things now, but you have no idea what it took to get to here. Unfortunately there are still attitudes such as yours that seem to think mental health is just a matter of be stronger, man up you would cope if you had to. These things might help everyday negative emotions but they are no more able to overcome mental illness than cancer.

@Sideorderofchips

I kmow someone who will be an absolute bitch to people and then when she pulled up on it she says 'oh it was my anxiety talking'

I think saying 'I have anxiety' is quite difference from using it as an excuse for poor behaviour.

There's 2 points being confused on this thread:

1. How to phrase it when you have a feeling/diagnosis of anxiety
2. Using anxiety as an excuse to get you out of tricky situations, when actually it's just that you really can't be bothered to deal with life.

[quote Ihatefish]@Mango101 this just goes to prove how different everyone can be. I once sat at home with a fractured ankle for a week because I was prettified of going to hospital because of my ptsd, I had a screaming breakdown in the middle of a&e. It took 3 attempts to get me into X-ray. In the end they had to treat me in the children’s play area they closed off because I couldn’t go into a cubicle. If I had needed oxygen then would most certainly have had to sedate me. Much will depend on the nature of the trauma and any co existing issues. Reactions like this are NOT a choice. Even getting out of breath during exercise can be majorly triggering,

I could probably cope with these things now, but you have no idea what it took to get to here. Unfortunately there are still attitudes such as yours that seem to think mental health is just a matter of be stronger, man up you would cope if you had to. These things might help everyday negative emotions but they are no more able to overcome mental illness than cancer.[/quote]
You're mis-understanding me.
I totally accept what you say.
I remember someone who had an extreme needle phobia and so refused treatment/pain relief for his heart attack.

But that's different to the (large) majority of people refusing to wear masks in supermarkets (spreading Covid willy nilly) who will be fine wearing O2 masks in hospitals when they desperately need it.

It’s fashion now, especially within the younger generation.. And it’s wrong. It takes away the seriousness from the genuine sufferers.

I kmow someone who will be an absolute bitch to people and then when she pulled up on it she says 'oh it was my anxiety talking'

I've never known anyone who did that, but I know a lot of people who will use 'I was under stress!' in the same way. I think that there will always be people who sometimes want an excuse to be nasty to others, and they will just use whatever's available!

Who gets to decide who the "genuine sufferers" are? Fed up of this dismissiveness towards people who are struggling. I volunteer for a charity who support people with mental health problems and there is still a lot of stigma out there which prevents people from speaking up. Why is it not possible to accept that everyones struggles are very personal to them and should not be minimised?

Who gets to decide? A mental health professional I should imagine.

@Frenchdressing

Who gets to decide? A mental health professional I should imagine.

I was just given a questionnaire by my GP, could have done the same online and scored it myself.