Amanda Graeter
English 12
Mr. Lehman
30 November 2004
My Anxiety Disorder
Well here I am at a whole new beginning. I had started one I-search on the impossibly
large topic of myself, and I finally realized just how frustrating that would
be. Accurately judging one’s self is so
hard, and making an analysis, well that is quite an absurd idea. It is not like I got upset at the whole
thought of a paper, it’s just that when I sat down to work on it, I got
extremely anxious. So there I was, not
knowing what to do, and yet I had to turn in half of my paper (fully edited and
perfect) in two days, while all I had were three pages of fragmented thoughts
with no research at all. What in Hell
was I going to do?
I did the only thing I could do. I panicked. I lost
control and avoided the problem like I do every time something like this
happens. I tend to go off into my own
little world where there are no longer problems, and the ones that I used to
have cannot touch me. This is a problem
of mine, an actual psychiatric problem.
You see, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and my body has
developed this reaction to stress.
Every time I am just a little worried, or afraid, it turns into a
gigantic mound of anxiety. I used to feel like this every day, every single
day.
Eventually, I calmed down about the paper and realized that
my original topic wasn’t going to work.
I needed something narrower, something important to me yet not so
self-revealing, and a lot easier to research.
That’s when I realized, “Why not just do the paper on your anxiety? It would be a lot easier than analyzing all
of yourself, and you could even use some of the research that you have already
done.”
So what is my Anxiety Disorder? GAD, in simplest terms, is a constant state of worry and anxiety,
which is significantly greater than the levels of actual stress. Symptoms affect a patient’s ability to
function and cause significant distress (Simon and Stern). A stressor or incident can trigger this
constant state of worry. For most patients,
this high degree of anxiety is often underestimated by the outside observer
(“Improving”).
It’s hard to describe anxiety precisely. Too often I have felt an overwhelming urge
to get away if I have to face anything: writing this paper, allergy shots, or
just calling someone. Somehow I’ve even
developed a fear of calling my friends.
In fact, I used to hate talking to people most of the time. It had to be late in the night for me to
actually calm down enough to have an interesting conversation.
According to a survey done by the Anxiety Disorders
Association of America, “GAD has a negative effect on one's ability to develop
and maintain healthy relationships with spouses/significant others, friends,
family and co-workers (“Generalized”).”
The difficulty with relationships can vary from person to person.
Some people with generalized anxiety have
fluctuations in mood from hour-to-hour, whereas others have "good
days" and "bad days". Others do better in the morning, and
others find it easier at the end of the day. These anxiety feelings and moods
feed on themselves, leading the person to continue in the pattern of worry and
anxiety -- unless something powerful breaks it up (“What is”).
I was always worried. I would avoid eating in the school’s cafeteria
because of the large crowds of students and I would snap at my mother when she
came upstairs to talk with me after school.
Also, I wouldn’t go up and talk to people I didn’t know because I had a
fear that they would make some sort of judgment of me. All of this from one little disorder.
I’ve had some anxiety symptoms throughout my lifetime, but
my symptoms became more prevalent over the past few years. Only recently was GAD diagnosed and
treatment started. To me, GAD is a gut
retching fear whenever I do something uncomfortable. I have gone through years without asking for assistance at
stores, doing only things that didn’t catch the attention of others, and
spending as much time alone as possible.
That was my life, and I want to know why I didn’t notice earlier that it
wasn’t normal.
The median age of onset for GAD occurs in the early 20s
(“Generalized”), but when GAD is a patient’s primary psychiatric disorder,
onset can occur as early as 13 (“Improving”).
I believe that my anxiety fermented into a full-blown disorder at the
young, impressionable age of 14, in early 8th grade. I know the event that triggered my fall into
anxiety.
It was the summer before 8th grade and I had
traveled for 3-weeks on a trip to Scandinavia.
That trip jet lagged me and caused me to lose a great amount of sleep.
Because of this, my serotonin levels were thrown off balance and I began to
develop some serious problems. I began
having real trouble staying awake in Algebra, my first bell, and I started
developing migraine headaches. At that
time, my anxiety increased from small, or normal frequency, to common enough
that it interfered with my every day life.
Have you ever
yelled at someone merely because they wanted to know what you were going to do
that day? Have you ever felt like the
only important thing was being left alone and getting people to stop bugging
you? It’s not fun. But I am not the only one who has felt that
way.
Michael, a fifty-three year old
accountant, is constantly plagued by worry. His body is often tense and he has
frequent pain and muscle spasms. He feels tired during the workday, yet he has
difficulty sleeping at night. He is often irritable and quick tempered. He
spends hours worrying about his job, his wife, his children, and his financial
situation, though none of these things are in distress. He feels that he never
has time to enjoy his life because he is always worrying about it (“Learn”).
Just like me, Michael has GAD
I’ve learned that many people have an Anxiety Disorder. In fact, Anxiety Disorders are considered to
be one of the most prevalent mental diseases (Hasson 187). Generalized Anxiety Disorder is thought to
be the most common Anxiety Disorder and affects about 5% of the population
sometime in their life (Simon and Stern) and about 10 million adults in the
Untied states (“Generalized”). However,
many people tend to think of their anxiety as an inherited personality trait
and only about one-third of those suffering from the disorders receive
treatment (“Improving”).
According to Kuernisted and Bleau in the Canadian Journal
of Psychiatry, “GAD follows a chronic course with low rates of remission
and moderate rates of relapse or recurrences following the remission. Studies suggest that this chronic pattern
may persist for 20 years or longer”(54).
According to an article in the Southern Medical Journal “90% of all patients with GAD have
experienced comorbidity of GAD with another psychiatric condition” (Pary et
all). It is rare that GAD is a
person’s only mental disorder.
Just as with other patients, my GAD is not the only
affliction from which I suffer. I also
have hyperactive allergic reactions, an information processing learning
disorder, and migraine headaches. In
addition, I used to get Panic Attacks.
About an hour before I got really severe migraines, I would go into a
debilitating Panic Attack. At times, I
did not calm down until my head started to throb. As we began to treat my migraines with an antidepressant called
Imipramine, these Panic Attacks disappeared and my overall level of anxiety
lessoned. Because of this success, when
we discovered my Anxiety Disorder, we decided to treat my GAD by increasing the
level of this medication.
I also started treating my GAD by learning more about
anxiety in general so that I could better manage my symptoms. It is quite normal for people to have
anxiety in their life.
At mild levels anxiety is considered
“normal” and even a positive motivator for individuals to adapt and cope with
stress. Mild levels of anxiety even
help by sharpening the senses and perceptual field, but moderate levels
decrease our skill and our ability to think is limited. Severe levels of anxiety so constrict the
perceptual field that an individual can only focus on one specific detail. All behavior and attention is focused on the
anxiety. When at a level of anxiety is
high enough to be considered panic, people no longer effectively interpret
outside stimuli. Communication and
daily living activities are dysfunctional and self-absorbed. Feelings of anger, fear, and helplessness
may emerge explosively and are directed towards self or other in a fight or
flight reaction (Pary et al).
I lived with frequent, severe anxiety for 4 years.
With GAD worries are generally
widespread, intense, more disturbing, and can occur without an identifiable
trigger (Pary et al). The development of GAD is thought to be influenced by a
person’s genetics, environment, history, psychological profile, and
biochemistry. Forty percent of patients
have close relatives with this disorder, while 30% have relatives with simple
phobias, and about half have a family member with panic disorder. Furthermore, most people with GAD seem to be
more susceptible to environmental stimuli as a result of a biological
vulnerability to stress (Simon and Stern).
So where did my GAD come from? While I have no immediate family members with an Anxiety
Disorder, I am almost positive that I acquired mine through my mother’s
genetics. Throughout her life, my
mother has experienced extensive insomnia, so much that at certain times she
was only getting three hours of sleep a night. While my anxiety and migraines are caused by a serotonin
imbalance, insomnia can also be caused by a serotonin imbalance. I inherited my mother’s serotonin imbalance,
but it has manifested itself in a slightly different way.
The serotonin I mentioned above is a neurotransmitter, a
chemical that works to send messages between nerve cells in the brain; studies
suggest that imbalances of neurotransmitters contribute to Anxiety
Disorders. In fact, having
abnormalities in the neurotransmitters gamma-amino butyric acid, and serotonin,
may play a distinct role in the development of GAD. Migraines headaches may also be caused by neurotransmitter
imbalances and associated with some Anxiety Disorders (Simon and Stern).
While this information may not mean a lot to you, it gives
me a great deal of insight. As
described earlier, after going on a three-week trip to Scandinavia, I developed
migraine headaches and sleeping problems. I also experienced a variety of Panic Attacks. Since serotonin is replenished during sleep,
my mother and family doctor, Robert Caldemeyer, determined that the harsh time
changes required of my trip were likely to have thrown off my sleep cycles,
resulting in a serotonin imbalance. To
manage the imbalance, I was put on a medication that I had taken during my
allergy treatments, Imipramine.
Taking 40 mg. of Imipramine daily stopped my 48-hour
migraine cycle and the intense Panic Attacks.
Curiously enough, four years later, when my GAD got to the point that it
was severely affecting my daily life, I learned that my serotonin imbalance
might have caused GAD as well.
Tricyclic antidepressants, particularly Imipramine, have been shown to
be effective in treating the worries that are symptoms of GAD
(“Generalized”). My GAD symptoms have
significantly improved by increasing my level of Imipramine from 40mg a day to
70mg a day.
Now, you may be wondering why I didn’t realize that
something else was significantly wrong with me for four years? What you do not know is that I had so many
other problems at the time that it was impossible for me to know that there was
another condition. I had recently
gotten my hyperactive allergy reactions under control, was learning to cope
with my newly identified migraines, and had only recently recognized a learning
disability that had just begun to frustrate me by impairing my ability to
complete school work. My mother sums it
up very well:
At times it has been difficult as a
parent to sort out whether Amanda’s behavior was an indication of adolescent
development, her maturing personality, or a symptom of one of her
disabilities. For example, in early
adolescence, Amanda developed a tendency to respond to stressful situations
with explosive anger and later developed a tendency to avoid difficult
situations, often by withdrawing socially.
It was often hard for me to communicate with Amanda because she demanded
so much space and time alone. Looking
back, these patterns of behavior were greatly impacted by her development of an
Anxiety Disorder. (Graeter)
After sharing this perspective with me, my mother seemed to get quite upset.
Later in the night, my mother talked with me again, this time not veiled by a pretense of calm and control that is her usual demeanor. It takes a lot to get my mother upset, and a great deal more to make her cry. Looking back on how I have affected her life brought my mother to tears. The reality is that my Panic Attacks and Anxiety Disorder have been greatly debilitating, not only to my life, but also to my mother’s.
I’ve grown to realize that behind me, supporting me all of the time, is my mother. She is there at any moment of anxiety or panic, holding me up without regards to herself. Two months ago, when I broke down because of the combined challenges of college visits, applications, and a senior’s workload; my mother made time to help me although she was supposed to leave for her uncle’s funeral in 15 minutes. She never made it to Nebraska, but my mother found a way to encourage me out of my breakdown. I couldn’t have done it without her. The night that she cried, my mother shared that parenting me through my challenges has been the hardest thing that she has ever encountered in her life, and I know that if she hadn’t been there for me, I would have never gotten to this level of ability to manage my problems.
Each day I have to face a new challenge, and through facing these challenges I learn more about how to handle problems. However, I still have trouble understanding why I get so frustrated and anxious. Today, while trying to write and research this paper, I faced another day of anxiety and avoidance behavior. But I completed the first draft. One day, I hope to be able to stop this cycle of anxiety and to get on with my life, like a normal person, without all of my problems.
Where do I go from here? In less than a year I will be preparing to go off to college, away from my parents and everyone I know. I will have no one to help me through my problems, saving me from mistakes. I won’t have people encouraging me to face my challenges, keeping me sane. What will I do?
Writing this paper has left me with some ideas of what I can do to help myself in the near future. Currently, while many treatment approaches try to promote recovery by treating you with a medication and then taking you off of it, I am almost positive that I am not going to stop taking my medication. Not only do I have migraines to deal with; but also because of the chronic, episodic, fluctuating nature of GAD, and high rate of reoccurrence, I am confident that my symptoms will eventually return. In fact, according to the Anxiety Disorder Association of America, GAD has a 20% rate of recovery compared to a rate of 80% in Major Depressive Disorder (“Improving”). Therefore, I plan to continue taking Imipramine for quite awhile before even trying to reduce the dose, let alone stop it altogether.
When I decide which university I will attend, the first
thing that I want to do is to contact the Health Services Department. With the absence of my mother to look after
me, and listen to my problems, I will need to set up some counseling. I have always been afraid of exposing myself
in the way that therapy requires, but I need to learn how. Also, I will need to find out how the school
will support accommodations for my information processing learning
disorder. I may need to contact each of
my teachers before classes start to make sure they understand my challenges and
requested accommodations. Finally, I
will need to get up the courage to be open and make new friends. In summary, I will need to find the strength
to develop a new support system.
Works
Cited
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Graeter,
Christine. Personal Interview. October 2004
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