ANXIETY

ANXIETY

Anxiety is caused by the belief that situations are more frightening than they really are.

FEAR is the root of all types of anxiety, for example:

• Fear of being shamed in public. 
• Fear resulting from trauma.
• Fear that your health is failing.
• Fear that something dreadful looms in the future. 

Facing the fear and ‘talking it down’ in your thought processes is key to working on anxiety.

PS! Whereas in DEPRESSION your focus is usually on past and present events that disturb you, ANXIETY causes you to worry about events that have not - and may not – happen.

Emotional reason will follow the lines of ‘if I feel it then it must be so’. For instance, someone who is highly anxious about a speech they must make, and fears that they will shake and shutter as they speak, will believe that they are actually doing this, even though these symptoms are invisible to anyone else.

• What is your worst fear that might happen?
• What actually happened?
• Move from ‘What if...?’ to ‘if it happens, I’ll deal with it’.

The key to overcome anxiety is not to focus on reducing the sensations, but on loosening the strength of erroneous belief that is causing them.

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SOCIAL ANXIETY

There is a fear of being judged harshly by other people, behaving in an inappropriate or embarrassing way, or being humiliatingly publicly exposed. The person may not actually do anything that is embarrassing but they feel that they have done so or fear that if they do expose themselves to the scrutiny of others, humiliation and disaster will follow. Research shows that social anxiety affects both men and women equally. It often begins in adolescence and in its early stages it will show as extreme shyness.

Social anxiety may cause an individual to avoid social interaction as much as possible, especially social gatherings where they will be exposed to a large number of people. When social events can’t be avoided, the person might attend functions but feel a high level of distress before and during the event. It is a typical feature of social anxiety that over time the person will increasingly focus attention on themselves and their social failings, making negative self-evaluations and catastrophic interpretations of either imagined or actual events and comparing themselves unfavourably to others.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL ANXIETY

People who are affected by social anxiety tend to:

• Worry overly and relentlessly about what other people think about them and assume that any thoughts will be critical or negative.

• Worry about their performance in social settings and make negative assessments regarding this.

• Have persistent negative thoughts about the physical signs of anxiety such as sweating, palpitations and blushing.

• For some with social anxiety, their negative beliefs about themselves, such as, ‘I’m dull/boring/no one ever likes me’, can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies, leading to:

• Isolation and loneliness, meaning fewer opportunities to develop intimate relationships with others.

This lack of opportunity to socialise, in turn, will prevent the person developing – or even maintaining – their social skills. Thus, they are more likely to avoid social situations, exacerbating the problem and further lowering their poor self-esteem. In time, this can lead to depression, as the sufferer becomes ever more isolated and believes more firmly that there is something wrong with them.

OVERCOMING SOCIAL ANXIETY

One of the problems for someone suffering from social anxiety is that, when in company, their focus is totally on themselves and their negative thoughts. Wondering such as, ‘How do I look?’, ‘What is this person thinking about me?’, ‘What will I say next?’, How will I handle a gap in the conversation?’ flood the mind of the sufferer, and actually prevent them from focusing on anything else. This can mean that the person does come across as not clearly present and interested/interesting. They will seem preoccupied and may not properly contribute to the conversation. Part of the person’s mind is listening; while another part is feeding themselves negative self-talk.

The solution

The way out of this is literally ‘turn off the radio’ of self-talk. Become an active listener. If you focus totally on what someone else is saying you will forget your own concerns. Ensure you concentrate to the extent that, if there is a lull in the conversation, you can simply pick the word from the last sentence spoken, and say, ‘Tell me more’, ‘Tell me more about Istanbul, I’ve never been there’, ‘Surfing, I have never tried that. Tell me more about what it involves’, and so on.

Becoming a good listener is an excellent skill for anyone suffering from social anxiety, as it takes away the focus from negative self-thought and puts it on really hearing what the other person is saying.

PS! Self-consciousness typifies social anxiety, where you concentrate on yourself and worry about how others view you. A helpful method to assist you in overcoming social anxiety is to focus outwardly on other people and your surroundings.

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OCD

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER

OCD is characterised by persistent, repetitive disturbing thoughts, ideas or impulses. For some individuals the response to these thoughts is to assign a fearful meaning to them, indicating that if they do not pay attention to them, or act on them in some way, something bad will happen and they will be responsible for this. The anxiety caused by these worrying thoughts becomes so intense that, in order to manage it, the sufferer will engage in a variety of safety behaviours such as avoidance, reassurance seeking and/or performing rituals, which may be either mental (for example repeated counting) or physical (for example checking).

An essential difference between OCD and other ANXIETY DISORDERS lies in the irrational content of the negative predictions made. The individual also usually appreciates this – ‘I know it’s a nonsense’, ‘I know this couldn’t possible really happen’ – but nonetheless, once the anxious thoughts take hold, the desire to reduce the anxiety by any means becomes paramount and overtakes rationality.

OCD sufferers often wonder if they are ‘going mad’ or think, ‘There must be something wrong with me to even have thoughts like this’. On the contrary, most people with OCD are caring, intelligent people – and therein lies the problem.

A feature of OCD is an over-developed sense of responsibility, so that a conscientious concern for the well being of others takes on problematic proportions. Many sufferers are also hugely ashamed of the content of their thoughts, which can include those of a sexual, blasphemous or harming nature. There is no need to be. These thoughts are far more common to most people than is often realised.