The Flapper and Generalized Anxiety Disorder

 

The Cleveland Clinic describes Generalized Anxiety Disorder as “a mental health condition that causes fear, a constant feeling of being overwhelmed, and excessive worry about everyday things.”

This sums it up pretty perfectly, really.

“So, you just worry about everything?”

Well, yeah, pretty much… But it’s so much more complex than that.

It’s a little difficult for me to describe to you what generalized anxiety disorder is truly like, because it’s something I have lived with my entire life. For most, it’d be like describing breathing to an alien life form. Do aliens breathe? Do they have lungs? Gills? I’m not up on this stuff.

I guess the best way to describe it is to say that it’s an ever present sense of dread. Like I am always anticipating the worst. It is elevated at times, and the physical symptoms are worse in these cases. Shortness of breath, speeding heartrate, muscle tension, nausea, etc.

But it doesn’t really end there. GAD can make you find a way to worry about anything. If things are going well in life, you’ll start to panic and worry about all the ways that things can go wrong. If things are going badly, then you worry that they will never get better, and you will lead a doomed existence. You worry about the weather, and your family, and whether or not the new leggings you bought will last more than one wash (I’m not kidding), and the stranger that you saw trip on a sidewalk across the street. Change can feel so overwhelming with GAD, but you also worry about things never changing and leading an unhappy life.

Rock, meet hard place.

And I know that most people would say, “Just don’t worry.” I understand that these people have good intentions and are simply trying to help, but it just doesn’t work that way with generalized anxiety disorder.

And so really, it is just something that has to be dealt with on a day-to-day basis. I know to those who are suffering from GAD that that is not something you want to hear; believe me, I understand how you feel. But if you can find the right tools, it really can be manageable.

Please remember that I am not a doctor, nor am I a mental health professional. I’m just a worry-wart flapper writing about her experience with generalized anxiety disorder. If you feel like you might be struggling with GAD, I strongly encourage you to reach out to your doctor and tell them what is going on.

Thanks for stopping by today, dear readers. Until next time…

–Miranda Atchley