Vancouver Anxiety Counselling & Stress Disorder Therapy
Anxiety is nothing more than a feeling of apprehension and uncertainty. Believe it or not some anxiety is normal and healthy. Chronic, and continuous worry or fear, however, is not.
What Are Anxiety Disorders?
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problem throughout Vancouver and British Columbia, causing countless Vancouverites to be filled with apprehension and doubt every day. Unlike rather mild, short-lived anxiety experienced during a stressful event, such as speaking in public, attending an interview or being on a first date, prolonged anxiety disorders can get much worse if they are left untreated, resulting in a significant long-term negative impact on relationships, self-esteem as well as mental and physical health.
Symptoms of anxiety disorders often develop during early adulthood. Although the majority of people have mild or no impairment, anxiety disorders can seriously restrict an individual's education, work, recreation and social activities as a result of avoiding situations that precipitate the symptoms.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, combined anxiety disorders impact roughly 12% of Canadians – about 9% of men and 16% of women. Collectively, anxiety disorders are the most common of all mental illnesses.
Anxiety disorders include:
Each anxiety disorder has different symptoms, but all the symptoms involve excessive, unreasonable fear, worry and apprehension.
Panic disorder is typified by unexpected attacks of fear, often involving physical symptoms such as a pounding heart, excessive perspiration, faintness, vertigo, hot/cold flashes, nausea, chest pains, or a smothering sensation.
Panic attacks frequently cause a sense of unreality, a fear of impending disaster, or a fear of losing control. Apprehension of one's own inexplicable physical symptoms is also a sign of panic disorder.
Individuals experiencing panic attacks often believe they are having heart attacks, losing their minds, or are a step away from death's door. They are unable to predict when or where the next attack might happen, and worry intensely and are frightened of the next attack.
People with generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD for short, feel exaggerated worry and tension throughout the day, even when there is little if anything to rouse it. They expect tragedy at every turn, and are excessively anxious about health, money, family, or work issues. Just the thought of making it through the day may even cause anxiety.
Individuals suffering from generalized anxiety disorder can't seem to rid themselves of their concerns, despite often times realizing their anxiety is more intense than what is warranted by the circumstance. They are unable to unwind, are easily frightened, concentrate with great difficulty, and have trouble falling or staying asleep.
Physical symptoms accompanying anxiety may include fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, muscle aches, difficulty swallowing, trembling, twitching, irritability, sweating, nausea, lightheadedness, breathlessness, and hot flashes.
When anxiety levels are mild, people with GAD are able to function socially and hold down a job. Although they normally don’t avoid certain situations as a result of their disorder, people with generalized anxiety disorder can have difficulty carrying out the simplest of daily activities if their anxiety level is severe.
Social phobia, also referred to as social anxiety disorder, involves people becoming tremendously nervous and excessively self-aware in common, everyday social situations. People with social phobia have a powerful, unrelenting, and continual fear of being observed and judged by others and are extremely concerned about self-conduct.
People suffering from social anxiety disorder may agonize for days or weeks before a social situation. This may become so relentless that it hinders work, school, and other ordinary social activities, making it difficult to build relationships and keep them.
Despite the fact that most people with social phobia realize their fears about other people are extreme or irrational, they are unable to conquer them. Even when managing to tackle their fears and socialize, they are typically very anxious ahead of time, are uncomfortable during the encounter, and are concerned for hours afterwards about how they were judged.
Social phobia can be bound to one particular event such as eating or drinking in front of others, or may be so extensive that the person feels anxiety around almost anyone with the exception of close family members.
Phobic disorders vary from generalized anxiety disorders and panic disorders as there is a specific stimulus, object or situation involved which causes a strong fear response. Some common specific phobias are centered on closed-in places, heights, escalators, tunnels, highway driving, water, flying, dogs, and injuries involving blood.
Such phobias aren’t just extreme fear; they are irrational fear of that specific thing. People suffering from a phobia of air travel might travel hours, even days, by road just to avoid flying altogether.
While adults with specific phobias understand that these fears are unfounded, they often feel a panic attack or severe anxiety coming on when facing, or even thinking about facing, the feared object or situation.
Individuals throughout Vancouver suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have constant distressing thoughts (obsessions) and employ rituals (compulsions) to control the anxiety caused by these thoughts. More often than not, these rituals end up taking control over them and their daily lives.
Common rituals may include an obsession with...
- cleanliness, and a compulsion to repeatedly wash themselves and their surroundings is developed
- being robbed, and an impulse to repeatedly lock and relock doors and windows occurs
- social awkwardness, and a compulsion to repeatedly comb or brush their hair, redo their make-up and/or adjust their clothing develops
Other widespread rituals include the need to repetitively verify, touch (especially in a given sequence), or count things. People with OCD may also be preoccupied with order and balance, or are unable to part with and hoard unneeded items.
Although healthy people also have rituals, people with OCD carry out their rituals even though doing so interferes with daily life and they find the repetition distressing. Most adults with OCD are aware of what they are doing. However, some adults and most children are likely to be unaware that their routines are irregular.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is caused as a result of having experienced a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm. Any Vancouver individual who develops post-traumatic stress disorder may have been the person harmed, may have had harm caused to a loved one, or may have witnessed a harmful event involving loved ones or strangers.
PTSD first surfaced as a result of war veterans' experiences, but can result from any number of traumatic events, including mugging, rape, kidnapping, child abuse, car accidents, plane crashes, and even natural disasters such as flooding, hurricanes or earthquakes.
People with post-traumatic stress disorder are likely to startle easily, become unfeeling and insensitive, and lose interest in things they used to enjoy. They may be more irritable, become more aggressive, or even become violent. Situations reminding them of the original incident and the anniversary of the incident itself are often very difficult.
Many people with PTSD repeatedly relive the shock of the experience in their thoughts during the day as well as in nightmares while asleep. These flashbacks may consist of images, sounds, smells, or feelings, and are often triggered by ordinary occurrences, such as a door slamming or a car backfiring on the street. Anyone experiencing a flashback may in fact think that the traumatic event is recurring.
Treatment of Anxiety Disorders
A person with excessive anxiety should seek treatment by first having a medical examination. An exam will rule out other possible causes of anxiety. Once good physical health is confirmed, then counselling can help.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for many people with anxiety. With cognitive therapy, you can learn to recognize and change faulty or maladaptive thinking patterns. Cognitive therapy is not about "positive thinking" in the sense you must always think happy thoughts. It's a way to gain control over racing, repetitive thoughts that often feed or trigger anxiety.
You need to be a motivated person. Cognitive-behavioral therapy involves hard work. You will feel uncomfortable at times. You will have to do work outside of the therapy session. Consistency and persistence will bring about the changes you desire.
Serving stress and anxiety counselling clients throughout Burnaby, Coquitlam, New Westminster, Richmond, Surrey and Vancouver!
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