What is Anxiety Disorder?
Anxiety means concern. Anxiety is actually a normal emotion that we all feel from time to time, but when this anxiety starts to affect your quality of life, then we can start talking about anxiety disorder. It is normal to feel anxious when taking an exam or preparing to give a public speech, but if a person's anxiety pervades his or her life, for example, if the person has difficulty in his or her professional or family life because of his or her anxiety, or if his or her anxiety occupies his or her mind for much of the day, it can also affect relationships between people. If you are affected by these anxieties, if your anxieties and fears cannot be kept under control, and if they make you do things you would never do, you should consult a specialist.
Unfortunately, today, anxiety disorders are increasingly progressing. When we look at today, many things have come into our lives that were not there before. For example, social media. When people see moments on social media where others are happy, traveling, on vacation, or not alone, their anxiety about themselves increases. Again, unemployment and economic concerns, which are today's big problems, are among the factors that increase the level of anxiety in a person. The increase in corporate companies, the fact that people in corporate life find themselves in a competitive environment, and the increase in stressful living conditions are also factors. Environmental factors are also important, especially people living in metropolitan cities face many problems such as air pollution and traffic that reduce their quality of life. Therefore, it is not surprising that anxiety disorders are increasing.
What are the Types of Anxiety Disorder?
The most common of anxiety disorders are; panic attacks, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. To briefly mention them all:
Panic attack: These are intense fear and panic attacks. Most of the time it happens suddenly, but sometimes there is a clear trigger. During the attack, fear is at such a high level that the person thinks that he will die or lose control completely, and after it happens once, he always starts to worry about "what if it happens again". Attack duration Therefore, the person should tell himself that this is just an attack, there is nothing to be afraid of, and wait for it to pass. Since there are physical symptoms as well as psychological symptoms, patients generally think that there is a physical problem and first consult physicians from other branches. They do not realize or do not want to accept that what they are experiencing may be a psychological problem. Panic attack is a disease that can be treated by experts. Panic attacks usually occur suddenly, and there is no way to stop the attack once it occurs. In addition, there is generally no connection between the severity of anxiety and the situation experienced. These seizures usually pass within a few minutes, but sometimes there may be seizures that last longer. At least 3-4 of the symptoms I will list now must be present at the same time.
Palpitation, Sweating, Shortness of breath, Feeling like you are drowning, Tremors, Dizziness, Nausea, Feeling that what you are experiencing is not real, Hot flushes or feeling cold, Feeling like the body is numb, Chest pain, Fear of death, Fear of losing your mind or going crazy..
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: This is also a very common anxiety disorder. Anxiety that is excessive, uncontrollable, and inappropriate for the situation, even when there is no real reason or even if there is a reason, is the main symptom of the disease. In fact, the person is aware that their anxiety is excessive, but they cannot control their anxiety and cannot calm down. This uncontrollable state of anxiety exists almost every day for at least six months and lasts throughout the day. Generalized anxiety disorder is usually accompanied by some physical complaints such as unreasonable fatigue, headache and muscle aches, sweating, intolerance, nausea, hot flushes, and feeling dizzy. This disorder is a treatable disease, just like panic attacks.
Social Phobias: are also a type of anxiety disorders. The most important feature of social phobia is that the patient feels extreme fear and anxiety when engaging in any activity with other people. They are often afraid of being judged or criticized when out in public. People with social phobia worry that they will do stupid or embarrassing things when they engage in activities such as talking, eating, or drinking with other people. they hear. They try to do everything flawlessly and perfectly in order not to be embarrassed, humiliated or criticized, so they restrict their behavior in social environments or try not to enter social environments. In addition, even the thought that the symptoms of anxiety they feel during this time (such as tremors, insufficient voice, tremors when speaking, blushing, sweating) will be visible from the outside can lead to fear. It is also possible to overcome social phobia with the right therapy methods.
Obsessive compulsive disorder: is also a type of anxiety disorder. The person is trapped in a cycle of repetitive thoughts and behaviors. These people have recurring and stressful thoughts and fears, which we call obsessions. Since obsessions create restlessness and stress, the person relaxes himself with some actions. These are compulsions. To give an example, the thought that a person will get dirt or germs from somewhere is his obsession, and constantly washing his hands or constantly wiping everything with a wet wipe to relieve himself is a compulsion. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder may be aware that their obsessions and obsessions are unreal or meaningless, but they cannot stop themselves.
Finally, I would like to talk about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. First of all, let me talk about what trauma is. We call psychological trauma the effects caused by unusual and unexpected events that make the person extremely frightened, terrified, and helpless. Some people may not recover months or even years after the traumatic event, and they continue to experience extreme stress or anxiety due to the trauma. These people may frequently see images (flashbacks) as if they are reliving the event or may have nightmares about the event, easy things such as relaxing, concentrating or sleeping become difficult, and they feel alienated from the people they love. In this case, we talk about post-traumatic stress disorder.
How is Anxiety Disorder Treated?
When applying psychotherapy, we psychologists actually have two main goals: The first is to relieve the symptoms. is to disappear. In other words, reducing that state of excessive anxiety in the person, improving his/her interpersonal relationships or business life, The improvement of family life and the complete disappearance of complaints such as insomnia, fatigue and headaches, if any. The second and, in my opinion, more important goal is to discover and define the main underlying factors. So why did this person contract this disease? This part requires a little deeper study. We should not forget that anxiety is the visible part of the iceberg and we need to get down to those invisible, unconscious feelings and thoughts. Then and only then can we get rid of our disease completely. Let's just assume that we have achieved our first goal, our client's complaints have disappeared and he has become a much less anxious person. Symptoms may appear with the slightest trigger. In order to be sure that the symptoms will not return, it is necessary to find the main factor in the unconscious and solve that issue or discover how to deal with it. To be a little more descriptive, let's take the example I gave for obsessive-compulsive disorder. The person is afraid that he will be infected with germs from somewhere, so he constantly washes his hands and wipes his belongings with wet wipes. The first goal is to eliminate the symptoms, to ensure that the client washes his hands normally and does not wipe his belongings unnecessarily. The second and deeper goal is where the idea that "he will be infected with germs" is based.
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