First let’s be frank, aren’t we all a bit anxious? Don’t we all have issues? Things that concern us to the point of making us worry, fret, or even have a sleepless night or two? We live in a society that breeds anxiety. But carry on, we go to work, buy the groceries, rock the baby, right? Well if this describes you, well rest easy, you do not have GAD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a very serious and debilitating disease that can actually disallow your being able to live a normal productive life. It is debilitating anxiety disorder. It might be that you used to worry about little things, the bills, the job, how you look, what to fix for dinner. It just worried you more than what other people seemed to be.
But soon you are worried about everything, It can take over your life, your thoughts, your actions. Although worry is a normal part of life, people with GAD cannot help but worry, creating anxiety that is frequently irrational. GAD can take over your life and your ability to live your life. Left untreated, Generalized Anxiety disorder will lead to other medical problems as well. If you have an excessive amount of anxiety you should seek medical attention.
People with generalized anxiety disorder find their worrying excessive, they are so distracted by this worry and their anxiety they find it impossible to function in normal areas of living. They can’t think about anything else. Sadly, many times the worry and anxiety have no foundation in fact.
Medicine does not know what causes GAD. It is sometimes difficult to make a diagnosis because of the number of physical ailments that are caused by the excessive worry and anxiety, but in themselves require treatment. Treatment is usually palliative, trying to control the anxiety and associated depression with medication and therapy. Treatment also includes the treatment of the physical symptoms derived from the disease.
Some of the physical symptoms are:
-Nausea
-Shortness of breath and difficulty breathing
-Muscle tension,
-Headache
-Feeling restless,
-Difficulty sleeping or falling asleep or staying asleep
-Fatigue, general malaise
-Loss of appetite
-Sweating and hot flashes
Now having one or two of the symptoms listed above does not constitute you having GAD. You can see how some of these symptoms could easily be ascribed to many other illnesses. So the main symptoms of GAD are irrational worry and debilitating anxiety. These associated with the listed symptoms can help lead to a diagnosis of GAD.
Regardless of the severity or mildness of your symptoms, people with generalized anxiety disorder can be helped. The key is to recognize that you are worrying overly much. That it consumes your thoughts and your behavior and actions are altered. Normally a person will worry about a particular thing once or twice a day. A person with GAD will worry about it constantly. A doctor can help you reach that normal level of worry even with GAD.
