What to do if your anxiety is becoming too much

Anxiety is getting a lot of time on the airwaves these days. It’s a word that has a big range in meaning too. You could be using it to describe how you feel about giving a big presentation at work tomorrow or you could be using it to share with a friend how you’re feeling about giving birth and becoming a Mom for the first time. Maybe it’s a familiar sensation that you’re more used to feeling day in day out than not. So what exactly is anxiety, how is it different than an actual anxiety disorder, and what should you do to help yourself if you’re realizing your anxiety is taking over your life are all things we will explore together. 

First we will go over what anxiety is. One of my favorite definitions comes from therapist and author Sheryl Paul. In her book, The Wisdom of Anxiety she writes: 

Anxiety is a feeling of dread, agitation, or foreboding associated with a danger that does not exist in the present moment. It can also be defined as a general and pervasive sense of dis-ease without an identified source. Anxiety, while often experienced in the body, is a head state that keeps its prisoners trapped in the realm of unproductive and fear-based thinking. Anxiety keeps you on high alert, and at its core, lives the belief that you are not okay, that you’ll never be okay, and that you’re not safe physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually.

How do you know if you’re someone whose crossed over from just feeling anxiety to meeting criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)? That is a question that will need to be explored between you and your individual therapist, but it can be helpful to know what the criteria is for GAD. (The list has been condensed but you can find the full criteria here from the DSM 5)

1. Excessive worry occurring more days than not for the past 6 months

2. Difficulty controlling the worry 

3. Anxiety is often associated with three (or more) of the following six symptoms (with symptoms being present more often than not in the past six months) 

   A. restlessness or being keyed up

   B. being easily fatigued 

   C. difficulty concentrating or mind going blank

   D. irritability 

   E. muscle tension 

   F. sleep disturbance (difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or restless sleep) 

4. D. Anxiety, worry, and physical sensations cause significant distress impairing important parts of your social, work, and personal life 

Generalized anxiety disorder is the most diagnosed mental disorder. The National Institute of Mental Health reported that an estimated 31.1% of Americans will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life. At Fig Therapy, where we work with folks in Charlotte, NC and the Carolina community at large, these statistics line up with what we are seeing as anxiety is something that more and more of us are struggling with every year. Whether it shows up as intrusive thoughts, difficulty falling asleep at night because your mind is racing, or worrying about what others think of you, anxiety can take on many forms. It can also make it really, really challenging to show up in a way that feels good and easeful for you. There’s a common experience that folks who have anxiety share that they are really, really tired and exhausted because it’s like their brain never get to take a break and truly rest. 

The good news is that you are absolutely not alone and the even better news is that anxiety disorders are one of the most treatable mental disorders out there. Now this doesn’t mean that seeking out therapy and working on your anxiety means it will magically go away and you’ll never have an anxious thought or worry about something that is out of your control again. It does mean that there are a myriad of tools and resources that therapy can help you learn so that your anxiety becomes a smaller, more manageable part of you and your everyday life. 

In therapy sessions, we spend a lot of time slowing down and paying attention to what anxiety can feel like in your body. Here are a few common sensations that folks who struggle with anxiety describe experiencing. Remember this is a very generalized list and the beauty of therapy is that it is individualized space to uncover and explore what it feels like to be in your unique body and nervous system. 

• Tightness in your chest 

• Dry Mouth

• Upset stomach / digestion issues

• Pit in your stomach

• Tension headaches 

• Nervous energy

• Difficulty feeling relaxed 

• Feeling overly awake and exhausted at the same time 

• Sweating 

• Clammy hands and/or feet 

Anxiety asks a lot of questions. I’ll share a few common questions that I hear client’s share from their anxious parts and I want you to reflect on the quality of these questions. These questions often have an urgency about them to be answered immediately, they are black and white, leave little room for nuance, and at the heart of these questions is often a deep-seated fear. And the annoying part is these questions inherently create more anxiety. 

• Am I with the right person? 

• Did I make a mistake marrying them? 

• Will I have enough money? 

• What if I chose the wrong career path? 

• What if I’m too late?

• Will they love me if I tell them this? 

If you are reading this and realizing that you resonate with a lot of these similar questions and similar sensations, therapy could be incredibly beneficial to you. You might be wondering what exactly happens in therapy if we are working on your anxiety?

Let’s go over three things that do and do not happen! 

1. Therapy is not aimed at getting “rid” of your anxiety. 

You might be reading that and thinking, “Umm this doesn’t sound very promising…” I totally get that and want to assure you that while it may sound counterproductive, not getting rid of your anxiety is a really, really good thing. In therapy, we spend time exploring why the anxiety needed to show up in the first place. Instead of looking at anxiety as bad, we actually hold the anxiety as a wise messenger that can help show us the places where you likely have unmet needs and hurt from the past. You learn to not turn away from that hurt, rather you are invited to slowly turn towards those places and learn to offer those parts the care you never got. In that sense, therapy helps you care for your anxiety and the places underneath the anxiety that are hurting. 

2. Therapy does not offer you 5 easy steps to feeling better. 

I’ll admit that sometimes I wish there was an easier path to feeling better and healing, but it just doesn’t exist. Just like you feel accomplished (and sometimes humbled) after a good workout, the same is true for therapy. And over time, there’s a sense of pride that shows up when you realize how far you’ve come. I find it important to reflect after someone shared that they bravely told their friend that their feelings were hurt or set a boundary at work that a year ago they thought doing something like this was impossible and through their hard work they are showing up in a fuller and kinder ways for themselves. These steps are meant to be celebrated and in therapy they very much are! Anxiety can rob you of joy and presence and being able to move into places where you can hold both of those things takes time and effort and support. 

3. Therapy isn’t just about talking about your anxiety. 

Anxiety is not just in your head. Sure it can come with a myriad of intrusive thoughts, but when we slow down to get to know your anxiety, you will discover it’s also felt in your body. A common experience is to have your feelings hurt by something a family member or friend did or didn’t say. What can happens afterwards is a part of you shows up and says, “Oh you’re being too sensitive, just get over it.” This is usually matched with a heaviness in your stomach or even a feeling of constriction in your throat. Therapy helps you recognize and notice the sensations of anxiety just as much as the thoughts. Sometimes we let your brain take a break and just let your nervous system do the work of being with your anxiety. Something important happens in therapy too and that’s helping you notice not just the parts of your body that feel anxious, but the parts of your body that feel okay, grounded, or even as a beginning place, less bad. This allows you to start to use your body as a resource to help you tolerate the feelings of anxiety without becoming flooded and overwhelmed by anxiety. 

There’s a quote from Sheryl Paul that provides a lot of hope when it comes to anxiety that I want to leave you with. (Also, I cannot recommend reading The Wisdom of Anxiety enough as it’s a beautiful companion to the work that happens in therapy!) She writes: 

Anxiety asks you to embrace the gift of who you are. Maybe you’ve been told that you’re too much — too sensitive, too dramatic, too emotional, too analytical — and this message was translated inside your young self to mean that you were wrong or broken in some way. But you must begin to know now…that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’re not too much. You’re not wrong. In fact, it’s the very qualities that you’ve been shamed for that you now need to wrap up like a hurt animal and hug close to your heart. For it’s when you stop seeing your sensitivity as a burden and instead recognize it as the gift it is that you will begin to heal the hurt places inside you and bring your full presence into the world. 

Therapy helps you see that while it’s easy to make your anxiety “all bad” there’s actually a lot “right” with your anxiety. It’s helped you and protected you in a world that’s told you you’re too sensitive and too much. But as Paul beautifully writes, those very things like your sensitivity that you’ve learned to hide will be the very things you learn to honor and bring to the light in therapy. It’s a beautiful, hard, and messy journey that is well worth it to go on. 

If you are wanting to heal your anxiety and learn to be with it in a different way, reach out to us at Fig Holistic Psychotherapy and set up a phone consult to talk more about if working together feels like a good fit. We offer in person sessions in Charlotte, NC and virtual sessions for all folks living in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.