People living with anxiety, face lots of comments by people who don’t understand what it is like to live with anxiety.
It is common for people to seek therapy regarding anxiety. At some point in life it affects every individual. It is considered a mental illness when the sufferers display signs of chronic anxiety.
People who suffer from this face physical distress, their emotional well-being is hampered too.
People need to be empathetic not out of force or to show off but do so like they mean it. You may not always know what a person who faces anxiety is going through. Yes, even though you as an individual may have had moments of anxiety that does not mean the experience you had is the same as what someone else living with anxiety faces.
There are quite a few responses people get when they say they deal with anxiety or try to explain to someone as to what they are going through. Most of the time the one’s they are explaining it to do not have an appropriate response and other times it’s not the response but people judging the one’s facing anxiety.
All this is due to lack of information and people wanting to be problem solvers even when they do not know much.
Few Stereotypes and Misconceptions of Anxiety
Lack of initiative due to being indecisive is usually seen as a weakness. Just because one doesn’t get involved does not means they are weak or useless. In fact, the constant commenting that the person is weak or useless may lead one to believe in these comments. It all starts with a doubt and then questioning yourself for being incompetent so be careful before you judge someone, and the way you express yourself.
- Gender Based Response
The, “We should be strong” statement is another one that people use especially when it’s a man who has worries. There’s a common response to a man with worries which is “We’re men! We’re not supposed to be scared”.
Till this day men seem to be burdened with the image of being considered dominant. There are men who try to seek help but are provided wrong solutions and advice in the form of the “Be Strong” statement and that their “Gender” limits them. It is sad to see this since this is what leads to ignoring the problem and causing it to last longer and at the same time turns out to be a bad definition for masculinity. It is good to note that it is better to feel comfortable for being the person you are no matter the stereotype you face by others.
- Judgement Based on Characteristics
A number of people misinterpret individuals who avoid large gatherings as people who are arrogant, whereas the truth is these individuals find it anxious to socialise with others and thus avoid these gatherings. Also, the only reason they’ve been away in a corner is that they are probably trying to get themselves ready to not look shy and nervous among others.
Anxiety can cause one to feel all sorts of things, things that they can’t explain. There are times when it may make one feel like shutting down and you just don’t know why it’s happening and won’t even know that it’s anxiety. People who go through this land up needing to just sit and do nothing and sometimes they’d prefer sleeping. As the whole scenario has caused them to want to shut down. This makes them feel better. But just because they shut down in the form of resting, sitting peacefully or even sleeping does not make them lazy.
The Most Hurtful Stereotype
The most rumoured stereotype among all is that people with anxiety are attention seekers. It just doesn’t make sense someone facing anxiety is either really facing it or they don’t know they have an issue and tend to seek help in the form of explaining what they are experiencing. There’s a pretty low chance one may use it for seeking attention. If you think that getting attention for living with anxiety is true do read the other misconceptions mentioned, it’s obvious no one would even want to pretend to be anxious after the way its stereotyped.
With all said, yes, some people tend to use the term anxiety to get away with a few things like saying they suffer from a certain anxiety disorder and thus can’t do so and so work. The fact here is that you will know when one is lying just by trying to understand them, ask them how they feel and what are they going through. There is large percent of people who tend to fake it by saying they are anxious are not people who really suffer from it.
Finally, What Can be Done
The whole point to this article is regardless of whether one has anxiety or some other problem or disorder, we need to be understanding towards others, less judgemental in our first communications and responses and learn more about the person before making a point even if it is to help them.
There may be people who pretend to be anxious and use it as an excuse, but it’s better to first try and get to know the person and understand them after this if you learn that the person is pretending try keeping your distance and stop being involved. Always try understanding the person and never accuse anyone of pretending to be anxious, this could just cause the person who is really dealing with anxiety a lot of pain emotionally.
The other reason you should not accuse or try helping someone living with anxiety all by yourself is that you can’t tell if someone is dealing with anxiety or not. If you are not a trained professional, you simply cannot make the judgement.
Anxiety Disorders affect a person’s body, mind and behaviour. A person with anxiety may have physical symptoms that affect breathing, stomach, muscles and sleep. Their thoughts can be affected with overstated worry over everyday life, nightmares, anger and irritability. At some point the disorder can also influence the individual’s behaviour. The person may lose their temper easily and tend to avoid certain places and people. They may limit certain life experiences due to them being triggers. Not everyone who has anxiety is triggered by the same thing and not everyone’s solution to anxiety is the same. They do not do any of these to seek attention, but these are physical signs of an illness and show that they may need help.
If people you know may be experiencing an excessive amount of anxiety the best thing to do is guide them to a mental health professional. For those who do not know what they face it is best to help them learn more through resources.
For people who experience anxiety, the thought that ‘most people’ will have a negative attitude towards their condition reduces their chances of seeking support.
There are many opportunities to change community understanding and perceptions related to mental health issues and conditions.
A key element in reducing such stigma related to mental health is for everyone within the community to have a good understanding of anxiety – that is, improving our mental health literacy. There are three key elements to mental health literacy:
- Knowledge of signs and symptoms of poor mental health
- Knowledge of prevention and management techniques
- Knowledge of how to support others
It is important that we continue to challenge these common misconceptions about anxiety. It is not just anxiety that faces these misconceptions but many other disorders too thus it is best to learn about the basics of a disorder or get oneself to learn the correct terminologies and reasons to certain stereotypes. Because many disorders have similar signs and symptoms, it would be wrong to diagnose someone wrongly and most of all when you’re not a professional. The best you can do are fact checks, not spread wrong information and assist the person to a mental health professional.
