May is the month for creating awareness on Mental health. I will be writing about Anxiety from a PERSONAL perspective.

Which means this should not be seen as an apt medical description. A lot of the things I will write about will be from the experience either mine or what I have read about or both.

 

In the subsequent weeks I will be posting all about Anxiety and some of the types of anxiety

I think if there was a magazine of mental illnesses to be made: Anxiety ought to be featured as the cover.

So many times it does not get the recognition it deserves, but as dr Ramani (a clinical psychologist) says “anxiety is the common denominator in all mental illnesses”

I was so shocked to find out the monumental impact of anxiety in our lives.

My first encounter with the reality of anxiety as a mental illness was by way of watching a documentary by Netflix titled The Mind explained

Depression gets a lot of rap without us even knowing that often times when depression manifests it is as a result of anxiety going on for a really long time

so what even is anxiety?

In layman terms anxiety is excessive worrying

but then if it is just excessive worrying don’t we all worry?

We do.

Just that worrying for some is different than for others

how so?

Well

excessive worrying that impairs your quality of life

excessive worrying that could prevent you from sleeping and/or induces recurrent nightmares

excessive worrying that prevents you from going out because you are too focused on what people would say or think about you

excessive worrying that leaves you breathless. Gasping for air without any particular external stimuli

excessive worrying that presents itself with a lot of physical sensations like shallow breathing( which I often thought I was asthmatic), feeling like your heart is about to drop out of your ribcage, stomach aches or upset, sweating palms (with no particular reason)

Anxiety is messed up. It can have you failing an exam or an interview you did so well practicing.

If you randomly experience your heart beating without any perceivable external stimuli like someone scaring you then perhaps you may have to look into seeing a doctor.

There are different types of anxiety and each operate differently. I won’t go into the details of them right now but in subsequent posts hopefully

In summary, anxiety is that little voice telling you something is wrong but you cannot even pinpoint what exactly is wrong. But it keeps telling you there is a problem.

It can be really debilitating living with all that.

If you experience any of this or you are experiencing any other mental health discomfort

kindly reach out to this Toll Free Meetal health support offfered by She Writes Woman 08008002000

or book a therapist via http://www.calendly.com/swwtherapysessions