Is Anxiety A Mental Illness? [Don't check in if you have health anxiety]

[AliasEQ]

Spamming threads over here :D


I've always wondered, but I've never had "the balls" to ask: Is anxiety or panic-disorder considered as a mental illness?

I've never experienced a psychosis induced by extreme anxiety, but I've heard that there is a possibility. So the question here is, can you actually go crazy from anxiety? Like, if it can induce a psychosis, isn't it classified as "going crazy"?

Last question: can it develope into something else?


I've also heard that people can get so bad, that they need to commit themselfs to mental hospitals. That's kinda scary to be honest.

Help is appreciated! :)

Elias

[ab123]

I think that anxiety is a by product of a lot of mental illness, and my opinion is that anxiety as we tend to have it. Hypochondriac and such... doesn't really tend to go into psychosis. I think that is more along the lines of bi-polar.. or other mental disorders.

[Anne1221]

If you go to a psychiatrist and get treated and you turn the bill over to your insurance company, they will require a number from that book.Anyway, it gets classified as a mental disorder. so i guess technically it is. In my opinion, anxiety can run a broad spectrum from GAD to panic disorder to social anxiety, etc and then there are degrees of it. Some people on this forum cannot even leave their house while others lead full, productive lives and are just bothered slightly by it. I think psychosis occurs with schizophrenia and can possibly happen with bipolar. If anxiety is left untreated, it can get bad, but as soon as the medication gets a person "calmed down" they recover.