What is Anxiety? In a nutshell, it’s the frequent or infrequent occurrences where someone goes head to head with a potentially dangerous or problematic condition.
It’s also felt when a person senses some kind of external threat. Nevertheless, a very frequent and irrational anxiety can hint to a certain form of anxiety disorder.
As a result, you will come across different types of anxiety disorder that can be dependent on triggers and causes.
Frequent Forms of Anxiety Disorders
Panic Disorder
Often referred to as Agoraphobia, this type of panic disorder is described as panic attacks that keep recurring unexpectedly. The symptoms usually associated with this are, chest pains, losing control phobia, afraid of being alone, and dizziness.
People suffering from a panic disorder are cognizant of the fact that their attacks are usually illogical and unfounded. This explains why many stay away from public situations and avoid being alone.
A high level of panic attack can be so overwhelming that people can lose self control and harm themselves.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Someone who suffers from anxiety disorder generally experience chronic anxiety that often has no basis. As a matter of fact, individuals with generalized anxiety disorders can’t put into words the cause of their anxiety.
This particular anxiety in most cases affects more women than men and can last as long as six months.
Due to the nature of the anxiety and its persistence, individuals that are affected with generalized anxiety disorder are frequently troubled and worried.
This outcome can lead to headaches, dizzy spells, insomnia, and heart palpitations.
Specific Phobia
In contrast to generalized anxiety disorder, someone who experiences specific phobia conditions can have severe and unreasonable fear of a particular object or situation.
Furthermore, when exposed to the situation or object in question they are fearful of, individuals with a specific phobia usually show signs of nausea, shaking, nausea, and shortness of breath.
Other common specific phobias include fear of blood, animals, enclosed spaces, and heights. The fear that people feel with phobia can be so intense that s/he may ignore safety when trying to escape the situation.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
People diagnosed with (OCD) obsessive-compulsive disorder undergo anxiety resulting from a constant idea or obsession. They are more apt to shun away from anxiety when choosing preventative measures or repetitive actions.
For instance, someone who’s obsessed with cleanliness might suffer from anxiety when everything they touch requires washing their hands. So to avoid anxiety s/he will clean everything in a compulsive manner or do it without a real reason.
Social Phobia
Also called social anxiety and is define as someone diagnosed with social phobia that exhibits related symptoms found in a panic disorder, particularly while socializing.
Symptoms include shortness of breath, dizziness, shaking, and heart palpitations that can occur when someone with social phobia finds his/herself in the presence of a lot of people or the center of attention, despite whether or not they are strangers.
PTSD
Perhaps more people worldwide experience post-traumatic stress disorder due to a very traumatic incident. Usually they relive the experience such as warfare where his or her mind will trigger anxiety and stress.
What can exacerbate the problem when a person is diagnosed with PTSD is coming into contact with stimuli (any person, situation, or object) that s/he has an association with (traumatic experience), thus re-experience the incident literally by uncontrollable crying, lost of control, or panicking.
Subtler symptoms can include avoidant behavior and insomnia. Also, these PTSD experiences can manifest itself right after the traumatic incident or many years later.
Diagnosing what kind of anxiety disorder someone has is vital to seeking advice for treatment and recovery.
Methods and techniques that are used today to treat a person coping with a particular anxiety typically target not only symptoms management but coping mechanisms when vulnerable to certain triggers.
In hindsight, only a complete diagnosis can put a person on the road to getting the right treatment for recovery.