How do you respond?

[pinchme]

How do you respond when the people around you who don't know what it's like to feel extreme anxiety say, "It's all in your head and you CHOOSE to think that way and be worried."

I really feel like I don't have any control with my worry. What do you tell them? Do I really choose it?

[shaggy82]

I get soooo angry when someone tells me this. It kinda hurts my feelings, when im being told that "its in your head and you have to get it out". Like you, i feel that its out of my controll. It my unconcious that controlls my anxiety.
However, the last weeks have been much better for me, because i've realized a few things about me as a person. I have admitted hurtful things from my past, and i got better.

So, in a way we can controll it. But not in the sence that others are talking of. You cant just say to your self "its ok" and it will be ok. Its much deeper.

I usually tell them that its my unconcious mind who controlls this, so there is nothing i can do or say that will help. And that its all about learning to react normal again, and my unconcious will follow.

(and that they are stupid :P)

[Robbed]

Here's how I see it. Yes, you choose to think in certain ways that get you in trouble. BUT, you don't choose an anxiety condition. In fact, FEW people who find themselves with anxiety conditions ever realized that thinking a certain way could get them into this sort of trouble. It is for this reason that people with anxiety conditions tend to become SO afraid that their problem has a MUCH deeper and more sinister cause.

Anyway, another problem (and perhaps the BIG problem) with what these people are saying is the implication that you can just make it all go away at the snap of a finger. And we KNOW this isn't true. Recovery can happen. But even under the best of circumstances, it takes a LONG, LONG time.

So yes, there is SOME truth in what these people are saying. In other words, anxiety is an emotional disorder and NOT a psychiatic disorder (like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia). But they obviusly don't have the whole story. In other words, YES, you do bring on anxiety with your negative thinking. YES, it IS in your head AND you have to get out of it. YES, you actually can recover from anxiety. But NO, you can't turn it off like a light switch.