Reader’s Question

I’m a 25-year-old Dutch female, and I’ve been suffering with what my psychiatrist called Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Hypochondriasis, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic attacks, and mild Depression for over a year now. I obsess over all of the symptoms that I have (along with many other things, like my love life, what the future will bring, that I’ll never get better, that I’m letting everybody and myself down, etc.). I keep thinking that I’m schizophrenic, though I’ve been told I’m not. I wanted to check if these symptoms are really anxiety related:

• My memory is bad. I really have to think hard to remember what I’ve done during a day, or yesterday.
• Sometimes my thoughts start racing. Then I start having thoughts that aren’t really connected to each other. They’re not bizarre, but there are just so many of them.
• When I’ve gone somewhere and I’m back home (I’m getting over agoraphobia slowly, so going somewhere is a big deal), I somehow can’t let go of the journey. I repeat it in my head over and over. It just sticks. In fact, a lot of my thoughts seem to just stick.
• When I’ve recently done something, sometimes it feels like I’ve done it a long time ago. And also, if I look back at memories, they sometimes seem fake. Like it was all a dream and it wasn’t really me.
• I don’t feel like myself. I know who I am but I don’t feel it. Sometimes I also feel detached from my loved ones, and it scares me.
• Sometimes my mind goes blank for a few minutes. I then seem to lose the ability to think.
• Recently I’ve started to obsess over obsessing. My mind is always on the go. I just can’t relax.
• Everyday I’m online, looking up symptoms, checking if anxiety is indeed all I have. I’m so fed up with it, but it feels like I HAVE to do it.
• I’m constantly talking to myself (not out loud), and it’s making me tired.
• When I’m thinking of a future event, I analyze it over and over and after a while it feels like I’ve actually been there, though all I did was think about it. This too confuses me.

I’ve got other symptoms, too (physical ones) but they don’t really frighten me anymore. I’m scared that I’m losing it, though I’ve been thinking this for over a year now and I still haven’t lost it. I’m also scared that I might forget everything and just “become somebody else”. I just want to be carefree again, and actually DO something, because now all my thoughts and fears are holding me from even trying things. I just feel anxious and tense almost all the time. Can this really be anxiety? And what can I do? I don’t want any medication; I’m scared of that.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Naturally, your doctor should remain your principal authority on your condition. But you provide sufficient information about some of your difficulties that some observations can be safely made.

You indicate that you feel “anxious and tense almost all the time.” That’s precisely what anxiety is all about. Fears that you can connect to an identifiable situation (like the fear of driving or going out of the house) are more accurately called phobias. Also, anxiety can be expressed in various forms, including obsessions and compulsions, which you also indicate that you have.

What you might not realize is that once a person’s level of anxiety is allowed to spiral out of control, some more “unusual” symptoms can develop, like the fear of losing one’s mind, the fear of a permanent handicap, feelings of unreality and feelings of depersonalization. Difficulty concentrating and with memory can be an accompanying feature of depression, especially a depression accompanied by much anxiety. Similarly, racing thoughts often accompany both mood disturbance and anxiety.

You indicate that you don’t want to take medication. Fortunately, anxiety is conquerable without medication, although the task becomes more difficult when the level of anxiety is high. So, you will really need to use the non-chemical techniques your physician might offer to help you conquer your anxiety. Above and beyond all else, you must “train your brain” to dismiss the symptoms (as frightening and unnerving as they are) as the mere manifestations of anxiety, to do as many of the things you fear to do as possible, and to reinforce the notion that you can function despite your symptoms. The more you do this, the less intense the symptoms will become.

Sometimes people become overly “familiar” with their symptoms and actually get to a point where they “keep company” with them too often. In a very paradoxical way, they gain some comfort being in “familiar territory” and at a deeply unconscious level are afraid to let go of what has become all too familiar. It’s a matter of maintaining some sense of control in a life that feels out of control. But once you’ve accepted the notion that such a high level of anxiety is not good for you and must be better controlled, things can really begin to change for the better. Folks who conquer their symptoms often emerge as stronger and healthier individuals than they were before their symptoms started.