Anxiety Disorders : how they can be helped

Anxiety, in a controlled level, is a very helpful mechanism. This makes you a bit more alert than usual or a bit more prepared since the prospect of failing or losing just lies around the corner. But anxiety disorder is another story. It cripples the person affected ; it sends him to seclusion due to possible fearful outcome that may arise irrationally or it completely sucks the life out of him through delimiting his normal activities to, say, compulsive yet irrational behaviors which is the case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And what's worse, the symptoms of an anxiety disorder could last for as long as 6 months but when untreated, it could affect a person for a lifetime.

Anxiety disorder is a broad category of mood disorders that appear in various forms, with various symptoms and in a variety of people. Here are some examples of anxiety disorders that appear pervasively in American population.

Panic Disorder
If someone has a panic disorder, he may feel like an impending doom is about to take over him, or a sense of internal and external chaos is about to crash him or it may also appear like he is losing control of everything, realistically or unrealistically.

The nature of panic disorder works like it is something that the patient has lost total control of. This then produces physiological symptoms such as racing heartbeat or those symptoms that are usually associated with a person who is undergoing a heart attack.

Most patients report of sudden attacks of panic disorder. In between attacks though, patients try to limit the dread and anxiety that it may happen again. However, the more they try to control their fear, the more they become susceptible to being consumed by their fears.

Panic disorder could stand alone or may occur only as part of a specific mental disorder like that of agoraphobia.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive behavior roots from the want of a person to control the anxiety that obsession and compulsion can produce. It is marked by relentless and very upsetting thoughts or obsessions and irrational rituals or compulsions. The rituals or the obsessions are not pleasurable and people who experience them could not explain exactly why they do what they do. Also, their irrational thoughts usually control them, thus making them feel overly irrational or making them perform erratic and absurd behaviors.

For example, people who are obsessed on intruders may find themselves locking and relocking their doors several times before they go to bed. Or if they are obsessed by germs or dirt, they may find themselves putting alcohol in their hands a number of times in an hour. On another case, a person with OCD who is obsessed on social embarrassment may find herself in front of the mirror, arranging and rearranging her make up. Normally, these behaviors come with senseless thoughts such as the death of loved one if one is not able to perform the rituals well.

At its best, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder could help provide temporary relief on the obsessive thoughts of the patients.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
This disorder roots from a traumatic ordeal which appealed as physical harm or as a threat of physical harm. People with PTSD are easily startled by things that remind them of their terrifying experience. They also avoid places, things and even events that may bring back the memories of the specific traumatic incident. Usually, PTSD and its symptoms develop months after the incident and may last for as short as a month of anxiety or may become chronic if left untreated.

Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)

This is an anxiety disorder that manifests when someone becomes extremely conscious and overly anxious about normal social situations. For example, a person with social phobia may have a funny feeling in his stomach once the day of a social gathering occurs. This could also result to a chronic and intense fear of being watched and judged by everyone.

Specific Phobias
Phobias are irrational fears about something that creates too little or no actual danger at all which normally results to irrational behaviors. Common phobias are: fear of heights, fear of flying, fear of closed-in spaces, fear of water, fear of dogs, and fear of just about everything.