Anxiety is the new hysteria

[Bluehatter]

Discuss.

I think when a woman is diagnosed with anxiety they are screwed if they develop any physical illness because everything is put down to the anxiety. And it is generally women who are diagnosed with anxiety in the first place as a catch-all condition.
Men go to the doctors and are called brave, women go to the doctors and are labelled anxious.

I've noticed a change from 'I am anxious ' to 'I have anxiety '

I'm not convinced this is a helpful development as it encourages helplessness - 'I can't do it, it's my anxiety'

As my psychologist colleague loves to point out the only way ultimately to deal with anxiety is to do the scary thing and realise you didn't die.

I was just reading a post on here about someone with a rash and Op included a sentence like "I have pretty bad health anxiety to this is sending me into a spin"

Almost every health-related post I read on here in recent months has a similar line. Why does everyone have health anxiety suddenly? Is it an effect of covid? Is it trendy? Have people lost all coping mechanisms? Some of the posts are downright hysterical, never mind what they are like in real life. Women convincing themselves they have cancer every other day and needing betablockers to calm themselves down. Sobbing in front of children and planning their funerals. Absurd

I understand and agree that women are treated differently, and often more poorly by health care professionals. Obviously, not everything is hysteria (and doctors shouldn't be throwing that diagnosis around willy nilly)....but sometimes it is.

This subject is very close to my heart having a male family member who suffered terribly from anxiety. However, the original post is so peculiarly worded and confrontational I don't really feel I can contribute.

But it’s had dozens if not hundreds of different social meanings. The ancient Greeks thought it involved a wandering womb, Augustine that it was a matter of demonic possession and ‘sin’, Charcot viewed it as neurological, Freud thought that it stemmed from sexual repression or childhood abuse, and WWI saw a revived interest in ‘male hysteria’ (what we would now call PSTD). It’s been gone from the diagnostic manuals since the late 20thc.

There is no ‘good, old fashioned female hysteria’, any more than there’s ’good, old-fashioned demonic possession’ just a series of histories of long-discredited gendered misdiagnoses.

There is a serious discussion to be had here, as @LunaNorth and others say, but the title and silly OP probably make it unlikely to occur on this thread.

Maybe try again with a better thought out opening post, OP?

To the person who said that (paraphrasing) the only way to deal with anxiety is to do the scary thing

What if you do the scary thing and although you don't wind up dead you do wind up seriously injured? Should you go and do it again?

Asking for myself.

Not sure I'd survive those injuries again.

And before hysteria it was called 'nerves' often just lazy diagnosis. However it's not so very long ago that I went to Dr for joint pain and associated tiredness. GPs first question was about my mental health and would I like some antidepressants, so the crap continues in one form or another. Didn't help my arthritis though

I think anxiety is personal to different people. I’ll admit I used to be awful, saying it was overused until I properly experienced it along with its good old friend ‘overwhelm’. So I don’t know that it’s not always justified

Hysteria to me is the pathologising of 'undesirable' female behaviour. So any inconvenient responses to poor circunstances/relationships, or acting in ways that cause some sort of nuisance or challenge to the status quo could be written off as down to hormones and the underlying issues ignored. Anxiety is different as much more likely to be self identified/self diagnosed by people wanting to understand and label their own responses to undesirable circumstances.
A better modern day equivalent to hysteria imo is menopause. As while it's undoubtedly a good thing to understand the hormonal impact on women so better support is available, there does seem to be a culture of veiling social and relationship struggles of older women behind it. So basically, stick a patch on and keep on coping with your excessive workload, overload of domestic responsibility and unsatisfactory relationship.

Because mostly the scary thing being described is something like speak to a shop assistant or go to a hospital appointment.

In my case at my lowest it was answer the phone.

It's not go bungee jumping without a harness.

Anxiety isn't about 'a scary thing' that you can do. It's not being anxious about an exam or something it's a debilitating condition.

It can be an all consuming, unconscious physical reaction that is as utterly and comprehensively life changing. My DH was taken to A&E twice with anxiety attacks that passers by thought were cardiac arrests. His life (and that of our family) was impacted terribly for years before treatment helped him recover. He is well now thank heavens and the NHS.

There was no 'scary thing' he could do - it wasn't like he was afraid of public speaking or dogs or something.

The scary thing had happened to him (repeatedly) decades before as a child and the anxiety was the delayed, suppressed result of that and it burst out of him like a bubble popping.

I think your psychologist colleague might be talking out of their hat.

Good post. Though I think my issue with the current social construction of menopause is that women themselves appear to be enthusiastically leaning in to a construction of themselves as rage-fuelled, hormonally-driven harpies, rather than addressing social pressures that create situations like overloads of domestic responsibility etc. It risks being a kind of self-pathologisation, rather than looking outside yourself.

@DogInATent

I knew it was a thing but very outdated

Most people I know who suffer from anxiety are men. I don’t think it is considered to be a female complaint.

I wanted to say something on this thread... but you've done it better than I ever could @Churchview , thank you... I'm glad to hear your DH is doing better now.

It's a step up from receiving a Fit Note that simply says 'mental health' in terms of opening up a conversation on what we can do as a workplace to help and support someone.

I work with young people in a non-school setting. One of them is a 12 yr old female who went to the doctor with a persistant cough and was diagnosed with anxiety and given anxiety meds! I was shocked. Now another member of the group has also developed the same nasty cough 🤷🏻‍♀️

Agreed.

I was diagnosed with anxiety years ago. When I later lost a lot of weight (% wise) without trying, they'd only really focus on either my anxiety affecting my appetite, or were convinced it was anorexia and body image issues. They wouldn't look into it properly and my BMI is now 15.

Statistically it is more women who are diagnosed

You don’t understand anxiety.

And more worryingly, neither does your ‘psychologist friend’.

You’re talking about feeling nervous. Anxiety can be crippling. When I suffered bad my insides felt like they were being squeezed by a massive fist, I could feel my blood going around my body, every part of me shook uncontrollably. I’d spend whole days trying to kind of breath it away. It’s exhausting and scary.

Write your own article

A few years ago I was suffering from breathlessness and spoke to a (female) emergency doctor on the phone. Without examination she diagnosed it as a combination of anxiety and allergies and I should buy some otc hay fever tablets.

2 weeks later I had a small heart attack, a few days later i was on the operating table for bypass surgery. I try not to be angry about the initial diagnosis.

I know lots of menopausal middle age women with massive anxiety. Their hormones are nose diving, their kids are leaving home, and some are getting divorced and have serious financial issues. I’ve seen them physically shake at work.

Every one of them gets on with it, and works through it.