ANXIETY, FEAR AND PANIC

Are you always worrying and anxious that things are going to go wrong and that you have to take immediate action to make it work out okay?

What if you can't make it okay? What if it's not under your control?

Is this the dialogue that pounds you from inside your head:?

" I didn't answer that email from my boss, so I will be deemed rude, uninterested in my job and get fired!"

Or maybe you have thoughts like " my partner is going to leave me because I asked her to choose between me and her barking dog!"

If so, you are anxious and catastrophizing in an effort to brace yourself for the worst. You are trying to innoculate yourself against the disaster that you imagine.

It's a very stressful and exhausting way to live, because it never ends – no matter how many times you are proven wrong.

 

Helpful video: How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think

 

NEEDING AND HAVING A SENSE OF CONTROL IS YOUR PRIMARY OBJECTIVE.

When you realize that you are not in control, cannot get control and keep it, you become scared and afraid that everything is going to unravel and leave you in a mess.

So then you panic and become unable to think straight. You are in a free-fall and your rational logical functions are compromised.

Anxiety, Fear and Panic together are features of Obessive Compulsive Disorder. The Journal Psychological Science July 18, 2014 reported that people suffering from OCD have marked deterioration in the executive function impairments such as not being able to separate your fears from reality, and trouble making judgements and decisions based on fact and experience.

Anxiety about being separated from a loved one and one on whom you depend on to feel secure has been shown to have a close link to OCD. In order to diminish the threat of loss, anxiety, fear and panic combined often serve as relationship glues, to keep you close to those you need to help you feel safe and secure. Neuropsychoanalysis, June 2013

Read more in this article: Is Anxiety Your Relationship Glue?

 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 18 percent of Americans have an anxiety disorder.

It's harder to control the emotional parts of the brain when you are under extreme anxiety and bring your rational mind to temper the experience. Februrary 2010, American Journal of Psychiatry.

It's as if those anxious and fearful circuits feed on themselves, reinforcing each experience of fear with more panic and fear, making you anticipate the worst next time you are under some pressure to be perfect. The same applies when you are trying to control your basic instincts like greed, lust, anger, envy, hate and rage.

Trying to control and tame these 'big' emotions is so difficult that OCD is the often a way to distract and detach from the hungry monsters. By narrowing your focus on one thought and/or one action repetitively, you zone out from the guilt and greed, the insatiable lust or envy.

Helpful article: OCD therapy may involve getting in touch with suppressed anger

 

Link Between Anger and Anxiety

When you are afraid of your own anger you hide it from yourself. It becomes a taboo that you have to control at all times. Otherwise you will feel out of control, and judge yourself badly. You will look down on yourself with shame.

Your psyche has very effective ways of helping you disconnect from the anger and feel safe. One way to guarantee your freedom from your own despised and feared anger is to mask it with anxiety, fear and panic.

You are anxious that your rage may destroy relationships that are important to you. The anxiety takes precedent over the anger – no matter what its source or legitimacy, and whips it up into fear when you are in danger of feeling that anger again. 

A study reported in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 2012  suggests not only that anger and anxiety go hand in hand, but also that heightened levels of anger are uniquely related to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) status. What's more, internalized anger expression – boiling inside without showing it – is a stronger predictor of GAD than other forms of anger.

 

Anxiety and Pain are Intertwined

Anxiety is common in people suffering from chronic pain, and people with anxiety are more likely to suffer from chronic pain, according to a study published by the Canadian Association of Neurosccience in 2015. They share neuronal pathways in the brain. Anxiety triggers synapes that make pain a learned experience.

So reducing anxiety and stress can be very helpful in managing and reducing chronic pain.

panic

At times even the fear isn’t consistent enough or strong enough to keep that anger from rising to the surface. That’s when the panic comes to the rescue. In fearful and panic stricken states you are rendered helpless and your body is in acute stress. Feeling powerless and needing to be calm is the opposite condition for anger to thrive, saving you from the terror of your anger.

The problem however isn’t solved. You still have your anger and it is still trying to find an outlet. So it gets bigger and bigger, making you more and more anxious about it spilling out and embarrassing you. The stress of trying to kill a natural emotion can be fatal.

 Anytime you have the slightest irritation or mild annoyance you try to cover it up by shifting your focus onto other parts of your performance. You start getting anxious about your promptness, or orderliness or your productivity.

You try to beat your anger into submission with obsessive thinking and acts – all part of a fear and panic mode of operating to try and stop something from happening that is natural but that you are terrified of.

Your fear of being angry and expressing it has probably been with you for most of your life. Perhaps you were chastised for showing it as a child, or made to feel like your anger was so strong and dangerous that it would ‘kill off’ those you loved.

 

Understanding Your Panic Attacks – Part 1 – Facing Your Dilemas

Understanding Your Panic Attacks – Part 2- Getting Past the Shame

Understanding Your Panic Attacks – Part 3 – Fear of Going it Alone

 

HOW I CAN HELP YOU

1. Feel safe with your anger and rage

2. Understand that anger is normal and that it  isn't as destructive as you imagine.

3. Get in touch with the anger that is hiding beneath your anxiety attacks, so that you don't have to become helpless.

4. Put words to your need for closeness so that you don't have to get anxious or panic in order to get the care you deserve.

5. Help ground you in reality when your obsessive thoughts run away with you to protect you from your anger.

 

SO MAKE THAT CALL AND LET ME HELP YOU CONQUER YOUR ANXIETY, FEAR AND PANIC EXPERIENCES, REDUCE STRESS AND HAVE A HEALTHIER AND MORE SATISFYING LIFE.

I offer coaching and therapy services. Call to get more details.

CALL 310- 985-2491