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.

And they can only diagnose should they get to asses them

Not everyone will approach their GP

I totally agree and what’s more (I know I’m probably going to get backlash) IMO mental health problems, in an effort to have them mainstreamed and not taboo (correctly) they have actually gone too far and now are trivalised.
My DD in primary school now keep saying she has anxiety because someone else in her class had anxiety. My dd just has normal age appropriate worried and a seems to have anxiety over getting anxiety!! Grrrr

There is a huge difference between sooty auto so depression, being worried or sad and actual severe and enduring MH problems. Yes, there is a spectrum of it, yes people’s feelings count but the elevation of normal responses to stress and sadness to mental illness helps absolutely no one.

Recognising that worry and sadness is totally normal is a good thing I think!

*situational! 😆 Sooty has nothing to do with it!

@claretblue79

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?

It's necessary to distinguish pathological suffering from commonplace discomfort in some way or another.

Even in the very best-resourced healthcare system in the world, there can't be enough psychologists for everybody to see one, unless a significant percentage of the population are psychologists. So you have to work out a way of deciding who gets to see one and who doesn't. In a workplace, you can't have everybody being given the kind of allowances that a small number absolutely need, or things wouldn't run smoothly, so you have to work out whose difficulties justify those allowances and whose don't.

Would you be okay with your mental health charity having to turn away people with severe depression or paranoid schizophrenia who can't work and are living in chaos, because all your provision has been taken up by people who are generally fully-functional but feel glum when bad things happen and nervous when stressful things happen?

Part of the issue is that it’s hard to quantify subjective feelings. Some people become used to depression and have an extremely high threshold whilst others may have a meltdown when something goes wrong because they’re so used to getting what they want.

For example, I have a friend who is absolutely stunning, used to model in her teens etc. Has always been the head girl type who does really well academically and is also sporty, as well as being popular. She’s always had guys throwing themselves at her feet and tbh doesn’t have good form for treating them particularly well - drops them quickly and moves on equally fast.

Well, her last bf dumped her as he concluded that she wasn’t a nice person apparently, and I think it’s the first time she’s ever been dumped (she’s in her early 30s). Oh my god, it was the biggest meltdown! She called me in floods of tears and then insisted we all drop everything and have a girls night to comfort her.

We’re all sitting around the table a bit tipsy and she starts talking about how she thinks she needs to get some anti depressants as she’s having horrible thoughts like she may never find anybody else (yeah right 😂).

And sitting quietly opposite her is our other friend who struggles with her weight/self esteem and has never had a boyfriend. I honestly think she’s still a virgin at 32 and she never makes a big deal about her problems, has only ever mentioned it a few times when alone with me, and even then seemed very reluctant to open up.

I’m waffling on, but my point is that ‘depression’ means different things to different people. For some, it’s just ‘feeling bad when things don’t go my way’, for others it’s ‘drinking a whole bottle of vodka isn’t working anymore’.

*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.*

Sorry, but I feel very strongly that people should NOT be pressurized to undergo a medical procedure that they choose not to. They should be informed of the benefits of the procedure or test, and the possible risks of not having it, but if they still refuse, it's their decision. Some people who refuse medical tests and procedures have in fact been traumatized either by previous illness or injury, or by some form of sexual abuse: especially in the latter case, they may not choose to explain it to others. But even if the reason is simply, 'I don''t want to', it should be up to them. It's their body.

If it's something that could affect others, such as a vaccination, or a test for a contagious disease (e.g Covid!), then it becomes more complicated, but even then they should have a right to refuse, so long as they accept that this may result in some restrictions on their social activities.

But it is worrying if a health professional sees medical tests as involving a need to 'challenge' people. That's not the job of a healthcare professional.

Some people become used to depression and have an extremely high threshold whilst others may have a meltdown when something goes wrong because they’re so used to getting what they want.

I am not sure that it's as simple as that. I think that some people respond to negative feelings by talking a lot, about their problems, and others by clamming up. It's more a matter of style of response than of threshold. The one who clams up may not have a higher threshold for emotional pain; they may find that talking about it increases their pain, or simply feels unnatural to them.

@ddl1

Some people become used to depression and have an extremely high threshold whilst others may have a meltdown when something goes wrong because they’re so used to getting what they want.

I am not sure that it's as simple as that. I think that some people respond to negative feelings by talking a lot, about their problems, and others by clamming up. It's more a matter of style of response than of threshold. The one who clams up may not have a higher threshold for emotional pain; they may find that talking about it increases their pain, or simply feels unnatural to them.

I think they're two separate issues - I do agree with your point about them manifesting differently though.

I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder in my early 20s but stopped the flueoxetine after a few months as I didn't like the effects. I definitely have a high tolerance threshold as I was able to successfully perform in a stressful sales job for a decade without any of my colleagues and most of my friends even knowing. I regularly had suicidal thoughts and was developing an alcohol problem at one point - was putting away a 35cl bottle of whisky on my own sometimes.

However, it was like the job took all my energy as I had no energy left for relationships and was single for the whole decade, with just the occasional encounter. I was definitely pretty depressed.

One of my best friends is definitely not depressed and is a self proclaimed optimist, yet she describes herself as 'suffering from depression' if she loses a job or splits up with a boyfriend. It's all drama for a few weeks and then it's like it never happened.

IME people with real chronic depression don't shrug it off that quickly, but when she's down she definitely struggles for that short period. I genuinely believe you can get hardened to it. My friend has a great life in general but when she has a brief bad patch every five or so years there's no way she could go to work and function like I did.

I know this is just one anecdotal story, but I do believe that some people are better at managing their emotions, which sometimes can work against them if they ignore the signs.

Interestingly the bars for diagnosing some conditions (depression being one) have been changed significantly, so people who previously may never have been diagnosed with anxiety may now be given this as an explanation.

To be categorised as clinically depressed, you had to display five of eight symptoms over a period of longer than two weeks, and couldn't have experience the death of a close relative within two months of the diagnosis (the feelings were put down to grief if so). If these parameters weren't met, you were classed as experiencing normal 'sadness' which is an emotion that has to be experienced and worked through, in order to manage. In the 80s, the grief aspect was removed. A boom of anti-depressants followed.

Not saying this reclassification is right or wrong, but I think a lot of people are now being given medical diagnoses, or even self diagnosing, for feelings that are actually entirely normal reactions to shitty life situations. Feeling anxious, especially at the moment, is totally normal, but actual anxiety is a totally different beast.

Part of the issue is that it’s hard to quantify subjective feelings
Totally agree. I had heard of price claiming that they'd had a panic attack out if nowhere and it was so horrible, they thought they were dying.

I did wonder if they were exaggerating until I had that experience myself. I can understand though that people who experience a high level of situational anxiety when faced with a trigger could attribute it to a panic attack.

It's the same with pain.

I agree that it’s subjective, but if you do have experience of something, it is galling to read or hear about someone who is clearly is “making a song and dance” and then adopting a medical term into the bargain.

Dm had undiagnosed anxiety. No one ever mentioned it, and to us it was normal. When obviously it wasn’t normal. She self-harmed to avoid going anywhere, and latterly dsis and I realised she was medicating us as an excuse. She never went to a parents’ evening/school concert etc and it was always other people who were stupid or odd for going out. She never answered the phone or the door (a MN heroine!) From a really young age we had to ring up places ourselves eg the school if we were ill.

So when people say they have “anxiety” i am often rather sceptical. And it is never an excuse for rudeness or boorish behaviour, which seems to be the case often in posts on MN.

I do think a lot of people who feel anxious now and then will class it as "my anxiety playing up", which in turn makes it seem a lot more trivial in general.

I have severe GAD and panic disorder (both diagnosed for a number of years), and I do wish it was treated more seriously at times as it can be debilitating. So many times I've heard things like "just make the phone call, you'll never get better until you get over the fear and just do it".
Well I've tried medication, grounding techniques and therapy and so far nothing has helped, but okay. 🤷‍♀️

I do wear a mask when I go out, but I hated it at first, had to make a list of what I needed in shops so I could be in and out within minutes until I was comfortable wearing it for whatever length of time was needed. Some things can become easier if not completely better, but I still spend every day feeling anxious about something, I really wish it would stop, feel like I've spent my life being afraid and unable to do a lot.

Yeah I agree. I used to throw the word around in my ignorance, until I suffered a period of (diagnosed) acute anxiety and now I have a lot more respect for the term.
I don't mind so much when people use it to describe exam/interview nerves because performance anxiety is a thing. But feeling a bit nervous about driving somewhere you've not been before or having to work on a task you're not confident about us a very far cry from being unable to concentrate or function at all, or lying awake all night shaking and feeling like there's a hot iron on your chest.

‘In the case of an ex friend, she hides behind anxiety to be a rude cunt. I told her that, and that’s why she’s an ex friend.

We don't actually turn anyone away from our charity as we adopt a non-judgemental approach. If someone says they are anxious, that is important and that is how they feel. Too many people think you have to have a diagnosis or it is not a "proper" or "official" mental health problem. Why can't we just be supportive towards people and stop having this league table approach of who has got the worst problem. No wonder people don't speak out more when they are struggling.

claret, lucky that you're not oversubscribed, then. Most mental health resources find there's more demand than they can cater for, and have to find a way to decide who gets what and when, whether it's a first-come-first-served thing, maybe with a waiting list, or whether instead some way is used to try and establish who's most in need.

@GodOfPhwoar

Part of the issue is that it’s hard to quantify subjective feelings. Some people become used to depression and have an extremely high threshold whilst others may have a meltdown when something goes wrong because they’re so used to getting what they want.

For example, I have a friend who is absolutely stunning, used to model in her teens etc. Has always been the head girl type who does really well academically and is also sporty, as well as being popular. She’s always had guys throwing themselves at her feet and tbh doesn’t have good form for treating them particularly well - drops them quickly and moves on equally fast.

Well, her last bf dumped her as he concluded that she wasn’t a nice person apparently, and I think it’s the first time she’s ever been dumped (she’s in her early 30s). Oh my god, it was the biggest meltdown! She called me in floods of tears and then insisted we all drop everything and have a girls night to comfort her.

We’re all sitting around the table a bit tipsy and she starts talking about how she thinks she needs to get some anti depressants as she’s having horrible thoughts like she may never find anybody else (yeah right 😂).

And sitting quietly opposite her is our other friend who struggles with her weight/self esteem and has never had a boyfriend. I honestly think she’s still a virgin at 32 and she never makes a big deal about her problems, has only ever mentioned it a few times when alone with me, and even then seemed very reluctant to open up.

I’m waffling on, but my point is that ‘depression’ means different things to different people. For some, it’s just ‘feeling bad when things don’t go my way’, for others it’s ‘drinking a whole bottle of vodka isn’t working anymore’.

Wow she sounds like a bad person.

The thing is 'Clinical Depression' in its various forms (e.g. Major Depressive Disorder, Biplar 1) are clinically defined by the ICD and DSM with specific symptoms informing the diagnosing Psychiatrist/Clinical Psychologist of the particular diagnosis.

This is the same for Anxiety Disorders- G.A.D., OCD, PTSD etc. all have defined clinical features.

The problem is that anyone can feel anxious or depressed but people claiming to have 'Anxiety' or to have 'Depression' when they don't really doesn't help genuine sufferers.

Actually @claretblue79 I think you are entirely wrong. You should let people know when they are experiencing normal sadness, anxiety or plain being fed up.

You cannot believe the slew of kids nowadays who say they have anxiety, especially around exams or even deadlines. In 99% of cases (I have seen only one real panic attack) these kids (and it is always girls) are experiencing completely normal exam nerves. It would be helpful to tell them en masse that everyone gets clammy hands, a racing heart and probably feels sick/needs the loo before turning over an exam paper. It does them no favours to label a normal reaction as a special medical condition.

It then feeds into a mindset that anything uncomfortable is unacceptable, and they should never be put into that position.

I am not advocating a stiff upper lip or bust, but rather an acknowledgement that, as I said in the first place, lots of feelings are normal and exactly what everyone else feels too.

‘It would be helpful to tell them en masse that everyone gets clammy hands, a racing heart and probably feels sick/needs the loo before turning over an exam paper. It does them no favours to label a normal reaction as a special medical condition.’

I don’t have any of those symptoms before an exam, not everyone does. Exams don’t make me anxious.

DD messed up her A levels due to anxiety. We didn’t know you could apply for extra time so hadn’t done that. Even though she knew the topics very well, she was unable to write for half the time and kept feeling like she was going to black out. DS also had anxiety and had diarrhoea during periods of stress.

DD lost her uni place and got into a uni with lower entrance requirements. She picks modules with no exam components, and has all firsts. She did get necrotising ulcerative gingivitis from the stress of the first set of deadlines though, along with depersonalisation according to the doctor. She’s learning more coping mechanisms with time.

I try to avoid going into all the symptoms with people in real life with my own anxiety, because it is none of their business, and encourage DD to do the same.

If HR, the doctor, the disability office or whoever know the details and have arranged everything, then managers, university lecturers or whoever don’t need to know your anxiety has led to bone loss, you literally shitting yourself or whatever just because they think anxiety is catastrophising and a panic attack.

It is the same with many physical disabilities tbh. Everyone thinks they are an expert and thinks they can spot people who have made it up for special treatment.

@IrmaFayLear.I don't think you should let anyone know anything. You should listen to them and try to be supportive. Otherwise a judgement is being made which is effectively minimising what that person is going through. Not everyone feels those things you mentioned before sitting an exam etc. What classes as a "real" panic attack? I'm afraid that there are a lot of young people who are not considered to have real mental health problems and it is seen as oh it's their age or they are just exaggerating. Younger people in particular are often surveyed and are struggling greatly, paritcularly during this current awful time. Shouldn't their problems be treated as seriously as anyone else's?

*Anxiety is a normal emotion which most people have at some point. I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying you have anxiety. It is the correct term for when you are feeling worried, tense or afraid.

Anxiety becomes a mental health problem when it affects your ability to live your life as you want - whether diagnosed or not.

Both uses of the word are correct.*

I am a mental health professional and this is spot on. Anyone can experience anxiety to a lesser or greater extent. It only becomes a diagnosable 'condition' when it causes significant issues with every day life. But you don't need to meet criteria for a diagnosable condition to experience (and express) anxiety.

What are people without a diagnosis supposed to say when they feel anxiety about something?

Indeed. It's a perfectly valid emotion that applies to many, many people (most if not all of us at some point in our lives). Whether it reaches a clinically diagnosable threshold is another matter - but the expression of the emotion is wholly valid.

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.

Brilliant analogy and absolutely true. Let's not invalidate those with less severe anxiety who don't meet the diagnostic threshold. Their emotional experiences are no less valid or difficult for them to navigate.

Well if you are talking about your situation, i.e. developing a specific anxiety you did not have before, then yes, it would make sense to get treatment.

But if it is more general and you have always had it (or for a long time), YABU.

a) Getting treatment itself may be a source of anxiety, so how are you supposed to overcome it to access the treatment?

b) It may be due to current life circumstances or past trauma, which may not be possible to overcome.

c) Anxiety is often comorbid with other conditions, such as autism. Unless you are suddenly going to make society autistic-friendly, the anxiety is not magically going to disappear, even if conventional treatments worked for autistic people.

d) You say your husband has accessed treatment and is still anxious, so what is the point of going through all that if it doesn't even work?!

e) It's not up to you whether people should take medication or not. That's their informed decision to make. Adults have that right.

f) You are treating it as an individual problem, when really, the widespread physical and mental health issues members of society experience, are largely systemic. We need to address the root cause of the issue (inequality), not focus on the symptoms (anxiety), or there will always be more anxious people to replace any you manage to treat.