Anxiety is the new hysteria

[Bluehatter]

Discuss.

Oh this is such a good comment.
I do think that too many younger people jump on the anxiety bandwagon, it’s become fashionable to do it.That doesn’t mean that some people don’t have real anxiety probs that are ruining their lives, I just wish it was somehow different to over use of it.

There is no ‘anxiety bandwagon’. Younger people have experienced extreme disruptions to their lives at an age when they had not yet developed the kinds of coping mechanisms that adults relied on.

Then there’s the cost of living, the housing crisis, the environmental crisis, the rise of the right wing, and the polarisation of political discourse.

Unless they’re wealthy fascists, young people have a great many reasons to be chronically anxious.

So I have anxiety - in that I've been diagnosed, if only by a GP, and have medication for it.

Separate from the general anxiety, I am scared of flying. I did fly once (well twice - there and back again), didn't die but my fear of flying actually got worse. I spent most of the holiday either recovering from the flight there or starting to get increasingly anxious and panicky about the flight back. Not been on a plane since.

I absolutely agree it's the new hysteria in many cases. The difference is hysteria was not at all real while anxiety is very real for some.

That wrong diagnosis is then used to stop a woman getting real medical help they need. It's used by some men to hide their abuse and to get them off the hook when accused of it.

Then there is the group of people who claim it about themselves when actually they are just going through a stressful time in life and feelings of overwhelm or worry are actually normal in that situation and not a medical difference they have.

I'm autistic but was diagnosed with anxiety as a teen. This meant my autism was missed. I was never anxious I was autistic. I was subjected to years of medication that did more harm than good and then abusive partners telling me I'm mad or reading into things because I'm mentally unwell. Even had police and family court assume i cannot tell what is reality because ex really stressed I'm anxious and mentally unwell. Realised I'm autistic when my male child got diagnosed autistic- and now I understand I've not had any mental health issues or problems and am very angry how I lost so many years of my life to misdiagnosis. And I can't even accept things are always improving and we need to move on from the past because my female autistic child is dismissed and treated so vastly different for behaviour that is so clearly autistic while my son never had his autism questioned.

I also could add many stories similar to what others have posted. I know of a mother who died leaving 2 young children around age 5&7 ish because she was dissmissed and given anxiety medication for months when seeking help for persist headaches. She had a brain tumour. Only diagnosed when it was end stages but she had over two years of being dismissed.

I would add functional neurological disease and fibromyalgia to the list of diagnosis that are handed out instead of proper investigation when a dr thinks a woman is just hysterical

A cough can be caused by anxiety though. It can be a tic just like sniffing or throat clearing.

Agreed. However, they aren't the only generation to live through dark and terrible times. My mum lived through the Blitz and saw her own mother blown to pieces amongst other things.

Whilst I believe it is truly wonderful that mental health is now openly discussed and that greater understanding, empathy and enlightenment is constantly evolving, I do think the word "anxiety" is too often applied. It just doesn't do anyone any favours.

We all suffer from anxiety to some degree, it's a natural inbuilt human condition much of which is designed to keep us safe. Some of which is a hangover from our primeval forebears.

We all carry some resentment from childhood, we all hate being in hospital and some people hate walking down the road because they think everyone is looking at them. Where do we draw the line without minimising genuine mental illness?

Anxiety, no.

Borderline personality disorder / emotionally unstable personality disorder and bipolar type 2 are over diagnosed in women and very often totally off the mark (in my opinion).

Yup. I went to the GP with chest pain, palpitations, dizziness, extreme tiredness, and chest tightness. He said hmm, I see you came in about anxiety 11 years ago, that'll be what it is. I insisted that it wasn't, got into a bit of back and forth with him and he made me feel like a hysterical eejit, he even said 'I don't understand what you are so worried about'. Mate, I'm getting chest pains, my heart is racing and if I stand up for longer than a few minutes everything starts to go black wtf do you mean 'what are you worried about'. Eventually 3 years down the line I'm diagnosed and am now on meds to try and control my heartrate.

Dh went to the same GP with chest pains, he was given some kind of spray incase it was angina and an emergency cardiac appointment less than a week later where they diagnosed him with a pulled muscle.

Dh has a long history of quite severe mental health issues, I went to the GP once when I was struggling to cope when dh was at the height of his mental health issues and I was single handedly looking after a baby and a toddler. Yet I'm written off as being an anxious fool who doesn't know their own body and dh is whisked off for a full heart screening 🙄

Way to be judgy.

I was someone who planned my own funeral (in my head not to the point of arranging anything). I was convinced I had cancer many times. Mine started after what was to me a traumatic experience in childbirth. I also have a history of OCD which probably doesn’t help. I also have an illness that leaves me sofa and bed bound most of the time and unable to exercise which feeds into the fear.

That said, I’ve never been afraid of medical appointments or procedures up until the last few years, which I absolutley blame peri for.

I also don’t think being able to ask Dr Google helps. And social media because all we see is “look out for signs of this”, this mum died suddenly from”, etc etc.

Yes!
I've had "anxiety" for years. It meant I was diagnosed with costochondria rather than the PE I had already been told I had at the walk in, after A&E made me wait 18hrs with no CT scan. They sent me home.
It actually turns out I have had undiagnosed hyperthyroidism and a very severe B12 deficiency. So, memory issues, ADHD symptoms, depression and anxiety - all the things they see first on your notes made me invisible to even have a thyroid blood test.

The blindness it caused literally nearly killed me.
Oh and I'm still unmedicated 1 month after they've discovered my hyperthyroidism, not that it causes clots or anything...

I think the OP is a journalist, possibly from the Daily Mail. That's how they operate for stories, by not telling their own first. It's just fishing for stories for an article people, don't reply with anything.

I know one who nearly died. She had obvious symptoms of heart problems and was dismissed by her GP twice. She ended up blue lighted to A&E while having a heart attack.

Heart disease comes above cancer as the leading cause of death in women. Symptoms being dismissed as anxiety attacks kill.

Despite more than 30,000 women being admitted to UK hospitals each year with a heart attack, a study has shown that women had a fifty per cent higher chance than men of receiving the wrong initial diagnosis following a heart attack.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/medical/women/misdiagnosis-of-heart-attacks-in-women

Such a shame the OP started as it did, because actually an interesting subject.

So agree.
A friend's sweet innocent dog was attacked by a horrible aggressive Romanian dog- The woman owner said ''I got her to protect meee as I have anxieteeeeeee'' and was being an utter wet lettuce, and had absolutely zero control of her horrible ,aggressive, off~ lead large thuggy mutt.

She refused to pay the vet bill -{Hundreds} again stating ''I have anxieteeeeeeeeeeeeee'' said in a whiney childish voice with elongated EEEEEEEEE's , despite being a grown ~ass woman in her mid thirties.

In my experience, as a GP of nearly 30 years, it’s the opposite.
These days, many patients declare they “have anxiety” before they tell me any other symptoms. Young people almost wear it as a badge of honour, and embrace the concept. They come in and say “I have mental health”.

When I started working we’d rule out organic pathology with tests, and then be left with anxiety/depression as the possible cause of symptoms.
These days the anxiety is the starting point, and the clinical picture is built on top of it.

This is literally me. Been ill for the last two months and one of the symptoms is a surge of anxiety that lasts an hour or two. Had one today, awful. Had a load of blood test yesterday so hopefully will have some answers soon.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Bossy 🤨

If you want me to do your homework for you, OP, you will need to pay me.

If you are genuine, the polite thing to do is to express your own opinion first, to show you are not a student/reporter/troll.

BPD is the new hysteria.

I opened this thread to read and participate but your “Discuss” is so rude OP I will leave it at that. Have you never learnt social skills at all? We are not 14 year olds being set an essay title.

No. Hysteria was thought of as a female condition, connected with repression. That's certainly the Freudian understanding anyway. What we now describe as 'anxiety' used to be called 'nerves'. People would say "X has a problem with her nerves." Proust's mother, in Remembrance of Things Past, tells Marcel's father that it isn't their son's fault he keeps crying and can't sleep, "it's his nerves." I have the letters my great grandfather wrote home from the trenches in WW1, and he talks constantly about his nerves, and how he and the lads are trying to keep their 'nerves' under control.

I'm sure anxiety is a bigger problem now that it has ever been. People certainly experienced depression in the past, and I'm sure they experienced moments of anxiety as well, but the appalling, chronic anxiety most of us now endure is relatively new. I suspect it's partly to do with 24 hour news, almost all of which is bad. Overcrowding also plays a part. The world's population has exploded in the last century or two. Throughout the whole of human history it never rose above a billion. Then in the middle of the 20th-century it shot up to three billion. It's now eight and heading for ten. When I visited Venice last summer, my nerves were shattered. I felt like I couldn't breathe or move. There are just too many people, full stop. Even zookeepers know that animals become distressed when the cage is overcrowded. Plus, of course, the pace of life has increased. We just weren't meant to live like this.

Apologies, should have added a light hearted trigger warning!
I'm not a DM shark, student, man or troll.

I do realise that anxiety is a very real condition, having had personal experience of it in the past.

What I meant by the opening statement was that all too often women's health problems are written off as 'anxiety' and not investigated and treated appropriately. This is particularly true for women who have been previously diagnosed with anxiety, even if they now feel mentally well. My very real heart related symptoms were put down to panic attacks and I was offered beta blockers despite knowing this was not the cause.

Op you should maybe have led with that.

And yes, YANBU.
Too many women are fobbed off as anxious and/or overweight.