Anxiety Speech

All over the world, people suffer from anxiety, but what actually is anxiety? There are people who do not exactly understand or know what it is like to have an actual anxiety disorder. Frankly, a lot of people accidentally confuse anxiety with panic attacks or even just nerves. When it comes to tests a lot of the time people will say that they are having test anxiety. Anxiety isn’t that simple.

"Anxiety disorders affect 18.1 percent of adults in the United States, but also affect one in eight children."

Having an anxiety disorder is like feeling as if you are constantly shaky, fidgety and even constantly worried about something. I have had multiple experiences with this. I developed severe anxiety when I was in fourth grade and was finally tested finding out that I could have more time on my tests because of my anxiety. Even though I am not medicated when I should be, I can tell you and try my best to explain what anxiety feels like and what causes anxiety to occur. The thing a lot of people don’t know is that Anxiety breaks down into six categories:

• Generalized anxiety disorder
• Panic disorder
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Social anxiety disorder
• Specific phobias
• Post-traumatic stress disorder

From the website I got some of my facts from, they say that PTSD is under anxiety. Honestly, in my own opinion, I would put PTSD in its own category even though yes, it does have a little bit to do with anxiety. Anxiety in a way is basically a big umbrella or a word that blankets a lot of mental health disorders.

The most common anxiety disorder is general anxiety but also social anxiety. Social anxiety is most commonly mistaken as being shy. From my experience, I’m not really shy, I just don’t know how to interact with the people around me. When I am in the middle of a big crowd I tend to have an attack mainly due to me fearing that I am acting wrong in the situation even just that I said one word wrong. Social anxiety mainly only happens in social areas. General anxiety, on the other hand, in a way is kind of similar. Unlike social anxiety, general anxiety is constant, it takes over in the simplest of actions. I don’t really have a good example of general anxiety, because it is anxiety that happens at random times that are normally just general tasks. You have anxiety a lot of the time instead of only on occasions.

At times when people are having an anxiety attack they freak out to the point it can even feel like they can’t breathe or they are having a heart attack. These symptoms are often mistaken as something else that really isn’t the case or the problem. Depending on the person, your mind tends to black out, run, and can go foggy. You can’t think straight or make good choices because you are not thinking rationally enough to make good logical choices. You tend to jump to conclusions or blow issues out of proportion.

Anxiety is a hard mental disorder to have to live within a day to day life. On occasions, some people will get medication in order to control their attacks. The medication depending on what it is, it will be some sort of Ativan. The medication is used to calm down the chemicals in the brain when you are having an anxiety attack. Personally, I don’t know what it is like to be on some of the medication. You honestly just have to keep trying out the different medications in order to find the right one and balance, but that is just my experience.

Trust me, I understand what it feels like to have anxiety and if you need any support or reassurance or anything. Anything. I am always here, you can always go to my website and click the chat box button on the bottom of your screen and talk to me there. I am always here for you.

~Natalie Christensen