Anxiety Disorder as a Mental Condition - Essay Example

Intro: Anxiety is sure to hit everyone in one form or another during their life. All people can become anxious about some events, even fearful about certain aspects of their life. The list of these irrational fears, that sometimes seem to have no rational cause or root, it almost endless. People can become afraid of almost anything there is to be afraid of, with the phobia list naming phobias of almost anything you could think of. If there is something in this world, somebody somewhere is afraid of it, and without cause. A pencil is not really going to hurt anybody, nor a blade of grass, but yet this might be objects that trigger a person’s anxiety attacks, and sets off their phobias. Anxiety can be that severe, or it could be simple little fears that many people share. Many people are afraid of the dark, and get extreme anxiety if they are left in a dark room, or in a place with no lights. Claustrophobia is another common fear or anxiety, where a person gets extremely uncomfortable when they are cramped in tight spaces for a period of time. The phobias however, can range to other extreme, irrational phobias, such as autophobia, the fear or being alone, which can ultimately develop into being afraid of your own shadow and reflection. These types of extreme phobias often lead to painful and life effecting anxiety attacks. The anxiety caused by these mental conditions can hinder a person’s life, and could even have greater negative consequences than that. Anxiety is a mental condition that affects everybody. From being anxious about the little things, or developing full blown anxiety attacks, anxiety affects everyone at one point in their lives. This hard to deal with nervous breakdown can have negative impacts on the rest of our lives, as well as how we view the world. Body: Whatever if is you are afraid of, chances are it causes you some anxiety. This fear, or irrational sense of fear from, or cause by something, can sometime have a root in your past, but other times it cannot. This fear can also come at you all of a sudden, or some phobias or anxieties develop over time, and thus may be rooted somewhere in your past. Anxiety and fear can result from these phobias, and can lead to unwanted mental conditions or even hinder your everyday, normal routine and life activities. This is an unwanted result of the anxiety, which often leads a more negative then positive result on the person who is under an anxiety attack from their fear of phobia. An exact definition of what exactly anxiety is, is slightly hard to come by, because it encompasses a few different ideas. Anxiety can now be used replaceable with the word fear, as they both have become interchangeable within common usage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). Anxiety disorders also cover fears, anxiety, and phobias. Anxiety can be simplified and defined as “an unpleasant emotional state, the sources of which are less readily identified. It is frequently accompanied by physiological symptoms that may lead to fatigue or even exhaustion” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). And although fear and anxiety can often be used together, for a full and accurate assessment of your certain fear or phobia, it may be important to try to tell the difference, as a fear is usually based of off an recognizable threat, and an anxiety is based off of an threat that are usually left mysterious and unidentified. There are many different types of anxiety disorders. These disorders can stem from many different things, some fears that may seem logical, and some that may seem irrational and not make much since at all. These different disorders can all have negative effects on a person’s mental condition, and may all get in the way of how they conduct their every day life. One such anxiety disorder is panic disorder. When a person becomes stricken with panic disorder they can “suffers brief attacks of intense terror and apprehension that cause trembling and shaking, dizziness, and difficulty breathing” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). A person who is often afflicted with random bouts of anxiety attacks is said to have this panic disorder. In 2000, The American Psychiatric Association defined a panic attack as “fear or discomfort that arises abruptly and peaks in 10 minutes or less.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). Sometimes it may seem that these panic attacks come from almost nowhere, but they often tend to happen after a frightening experience, a long period of stress, or even after extreme exercise. Panic attacks often make the person feel like they may be having a heart attack, and this can even lead to further anxiety and stress while the person worries about their condition, and their health worsening, when it in all reality may not be. Another common infliction associated with panic attacks is agoraphobia, which is a common anxiety about being in a place or a situation where escaping or leaving would be difficult or embarrassing. This may cause a panic attack, and is commonly connected with panic attacks. Another type of anxiety disorder is phobias, often fears of irrational things that can’t always be traced to a logical reason for being afraid of such a thing. The person may even know and can tell that the fear is irrational and doesn’t make since, however this does not change how real the fear is to them. This can sometimes happen as the result of powerful imaginations, because the person can imagine themselves in the dangerous situations with the object of their phobia, leading to further anxiety (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). Another type of anxiety disorder is social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia. Many people may be afraid of scared about certain social aspects. But people with social phobia “become so anxious that performance, if they are not natural performers, such as children playing musical instruments from a young age, is out of the question. In fact, their fear of public scrutiny and potential humiliation becomes so pervasive that normal life can become impossible” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). Another type of anxiety is obsessive compulsive disorder, a disorder that is made up of obsessions and compulsions. For example, “Obsessions are distressing, repetitive, intrusive thoughts or images that the individual often realizes are senseless. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that the person feels forced or compelled into doing, in order to relieve anxiety”.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). A final type of anxiety is post-traumatic stress disorder, which can result from being in an overly traumatic experience, which can cause flashback or bad memories to the anxiety sufferer. However, despite all of these disorders, treatments are available Medications, such as antidepressants can be prescribed, but some anxieties can be cured easier than that with a simple change of lifestyle. The cost of treating anxiety is between 42 and 47 billion dollars a year, about as much as the average cost of depression. Anxiety is more wide spread than people think, and the costs are rising. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_Disorder). Conclusion: While many people may not know exactly what anxiety is, most people have at least experienced some form of it in their lives. If it is only simple fear of getting up and talking in front of people, or the better defined phobia of the like, anxiety is something that can strike somebody at any time, for any reason. Anxiety can strike for a myriad of possible reasons, from a internal fear, or from the work of a person’s overactive imagination imagining impossible scenarios, only contributing to a person’s growing fear and anxiety. Anxiety can also make a person’s live almost unlivable, and extremely painful. These extreme cases of fear, phobia, and anxiety can lead to painful consequences, and require treatment, and help from professionals. Different anti depressants can be used to try to curb the effects of the anxiety, and research and tests can be done to try to find out and explore the root of the phobia, if there even is a rational root at all. Sometime the phobia may lie in an irrational fear, a fear that even the person may understand to be irrational, however they still have the fear none-the-less. Anxiety is something we all feel at one time or another; just some of us feel it to different degrees. Some people have full fledged anxiety attacks and panic attacks, while some of us are lucky enough to only be afraid of the dark. While some of these phobias may have irrational answers, some of them also lie in our rational mind, and may one day be fully understand to the point of discovering how these mysterious mental conditions develop. Read More