Stigma - do people really understand anxiety?

[Sereen]

Hello!
I've had a lot of bad experiences ever since I started confiding to people about having anxiety for the first time. The first person I confided to, though a very close friend, didn't take it seriously and told me that it happens to a lot of people and that I'll get over it. Others, like my flatmates, will say they understand but when things are getting difficult they will treat me like I'm being a drama queen too. Also one thing I am sick of is being told to just 'calm down' or 'chill out', this happens usually multiple times in a day. People don't understand that my brain doesn't physically know how to just calm down or stop thinking and I'm tired of explaining it and constantly having to fight to be taken seriously, I just don't bother any more. Though their voices are now always in my head and I constantly feel the pressure to just 'calm down' and act normally, and each time when I just can't I get really mad at myself and incredibly frustrated, and it's a cycle that never ends. Additionally, I'm a medical student, so anyone who hears the word 'anxiety' come out of my mouth will instantly assume, no matter what I say, that my stress is linked to my studies rather than my genetics and hormone levels and it's something that all students experience and nothing more.
I think anxiety is a mental health disorder that not many people have a lot of education about, in my experience anyway people just act like it's a 'bit of stress' rather than constant internal turmoil and that I could just calm down and snap out of it if I wanted to. After all this time, I'm sick of being treated like a drama queen or 'just a hysterical woman' and I have completely stopped confiding in anybody about it, even those closest to me, which just makes everything a lot harder to deal with. Does anyone else have experiences of people not understanding their anxiety or belittling it? If so, how did you deal with the constant frustration or make them understand?

[Dahila]

It does happen to a lot of people, Welcome to the forum. We anxious people somehow assume that is only us. Let's say it, most people correctly respond to stress but a huge number do not. Anxiety is not mental disorder , at least in my opinion. When you add some OCD to it and phobias it can become eventually mental disease. Drama queen; I am drama queen for over 30 years and still kicking :)) Read the boards and the stickies. We have a lot of good information here, it is very helpful ;)
Have fun :)

[dilbuck]

I agree with dahila here. I don't believe it's a mental disorder either. Anxiety is nothing but a natural instinct to an outside stimulus. Our minds are essentially perceiving a weak threat as something much more serious than it is. Our flight or fight response takes over, our adrenal glands pump out some adrenaline, our heart rate and breathing increase, our bodies begin to shake and our minds become incredibly focused on our anxiety. With that said the only people that seem to truly understand anxiety are those that live/have lived with it. Up until a month ago when mine began I surely didn't understand what it was like. Now that I know I can definitely see just how frustrating/annoying it is. Just try to remember you are suffering from a natural response but your nervous system is hyper aware to the anxiety that you are feeling.

[Sereen]

Ah, by 'disorder' I was referring to the the umbrella that covers anxiety disorders in general that can come from a hyper-aware overly-stimulated state e.g. GAD, PTSD, OCD etc. I believe the correct term is disorder, though I agree with you that it's simply an overly-stimulated state. But at the point where anxiety and your panic attacks become debilitating to daily life and when it's little-understood by the people around you, does anybody have any advice that make it easier to deal, especially regarding support and those around you?