Anxiety
By: Dr. Molly Mitchell National Edition

June 20, 2000

Do you ever think that you seem more tense than your friends? You may think that June is a strange time to talk about this. Most of you will have just survived though a round of exams and finals and the last thing you can imagine is being stressed over anything. There is nothing like finals to stir up those butterflies in the stomach. And a little bit of anxiety keeps you on your toes, which can be very helpful during exams.

I think that now is the best time to talk about anxiety. Everyone gets anxious about tests (well, they should, anyway) but some people get anxious over many more things, and much more often. It's easy to dismiss nervous feelings when exams and school can explain them. It's not so easy to explain them away when school is a distant memory and summer is in full swing.

What do I mean by anxiety? There are many variations of anxiety. It can be a general feeling or might be specific to certain situations or objects. Some symptoms might include; constant thoughts and fears about safety, irrational fears of the dark, storms, or animals, etc., frequent stomach aches & other physical complaints, or many worries about things before they happen.

There may be a more sudden feeling of absolute terror, with all the symptoms you might imagine if a car were about to hit you. But, there is no car. It really is that intense. This is called a panic attack. Panic attacks can include; racing heart, dizziness, feeling short of breath, trembling, or fear of dying, losing control or going crazy.

You may know it's unreasonable to be afraid of something, but this doesn't stop the fear. You are aware that there really is nothing to be worried about. There may have been a rational basis for the initial fear, a bad experience of some kind. But now the anxiety has generalized, or spread to other areas of your life. Most people with anxiety problems know something is wrong, they know they are being irrational, but just can't make it stop. Anxiety begins to interfere with your daily life, making it difficult to do normal things.

This is all very serious, and extremely uncomfortable for the person going through it. But, you are not alone. More than 3 million Americans will experience a panic attack in their lifetimes. One of the big problems with anxiety is that it can lead to a fear that this feeling will come again. Now, you try to avoid any place where you had a panic attack, and soon the world begins to shrink. Some people start to use alcohol or drugs to cope, to mask the feeling of terror.

My main point today is that you are not alone and you are not crazy. Just like when we were talking about depression, tell someone. There is no shame in asking for help. The other important thing to know is that anxiety and panic problems respond very well to treatment. A doctor may prescribe medication combined with some therapy, which can turn your life around very quickly.

So in the meantime, take a deep breath, help is on the way. There will be plenty of time left to really enjoy the summer.