Overcoming Anxiety
Anxiety is an everyday thing that almost everyone undergoes the difference only being in their severity. Anxiety, which mainly affects adults like me, can be loosely defined as a state of worrying over a particular thing, situation or event; a stressor. Anxiety is usually characterized by uneasiness, fear or worry. When these characteristics extend over time and intensity, the individual may suffer from anxiety disorder (Davison, 2008). While anxiety is considered a normal part of life; age, occupation and environmental factors are some of the predisposing factors to people suffering from anxiety and worse still, anxiety disorder. Adults are more prone to suffer from anxiety due to responsibilities that come with adulthood. If married, the individuals will have to contend with providing for food, shelter and clothing plus other secondary needs for the family. However, this does not mean that children do not suffer from anxiety as they too in their little minds, also worry about such things as what, when and with whom to play. On the other hand, children who are abused in their homes always live worrying of what might happen next. Children from poor families may also worry about having basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing.
The most vulnerable groups whose anxiety may turn into anxiety disorder are the youths and adults. I fall in this category of adults who are prone to suffer from anxiety and anxiety disorders. We are usually bound to suffer, at one time or another, distresses that are bound to disrupt our normal life. As already noted, the main stressor in our lives, which triggers anxiety is the ability to satisfactorily provide for our families. Coupled with our occupations, the chances of adults developing anxiety disorders are high. Moreover, the type of occupation may also be a source of relatively high levels of stress. Jobs which are too demanding or where the bosses or workmates are difficult to go along with are a ready source of anxiety. Deadlines are a common thing when it common denominator when it comes to both adults, especially employed ones, and youths. Youths or adults, for that matter, who are still at school, face the challenge of meeting assignment deadlines. In addition, the pressures that come with being in between a child and an adult may be a major cause for anxiety. To further compound the problem to people like me, studying while at the same time parenting is a major source of anxiety. The fear of not meeting the assignments and the not being a good parent to my children is some of my greatest sources of stress, hence anxiety. Such external factors such as unfavorable environmental conditions may also be major sources of stress as they cause, fear and uneasiness.
All my daily routines are important to me hence I would want any of them to be interfered with. Hence, I need to identify the main forces that drive these anxieties before they get out of hand and become anxiety disorders. To achieve this, I need a diagnostic tool that would not only identify the stressors in my case, but also able to provide a way forward. I need a diagnostic tool that would offer the best solutions to my current problems before my anxiety disrupts my life and grind s it to halt. Notably, despite the fact I am always anxious about performing my duties, generally I have not failed as such in any of them, thus giving credence to the fact anxiety can arise even without a stimulus. To understand my situation, I decided to be the patient and doctor at the same time. I carried out a personal assessment and determined the stressors that usually cause anxiety in me on a daily basis even though I rarely miss to accomplish my responsibilities. This paper presents my personal assessment using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Mind over Mood Anxiety Inventory. It also gives the recommended intervention measures for my condition.
Personally, my source of worry is my family especially my kids and my education. These have affected my life adult life and have been the main determinants of my daily life. Being a full supervisor at a foster care is quite demanding and I am always worried on delivering my duties. To add to my worries, I am also a full time student hence assignment deadlines is one thing usually gets into my nervous. Being a full time mother, I love getting involved in two children’s activities. I help them with their homework and most importantly, I have to be there for them and take them for recreational activities. Moreover, every household chore in the house is my responsibility. Normally, these activities are daily routines in a normal life that should not drive an adult like me nuts or cause anxiety. This is because these are chores I have done over and over for many years now that presently should not worry me. However, to me I see them as competing responsibilities that I should perform to perfection. I fear letting my two boys down as a mother and on the hand, I don’t want to let down the management at my work place down for I value my work so much. In addition, my education is very important to me hence I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize it. I am always conscious to the point of worrying about finishing my assignments in time and performing well in my examinations.
The Mind Over Mood Anxiety Inventory which I used for ten weeks to keep myself to the different symptoms of anxiety, uses a series of question to score and track symptoms, moods and feelings. With the first column listing the signs and symptoms in the form of questions while the rest of the inventory aims at giving keeping track and scoring for these signs and symptoms. Thus, these columns uses quantifiers such as not at all, sometimes, frequently and most of the time (Greenberger & Padesky, 1995). Even though the scores fluctuated from week to week and do not improve during some weeks, it is a cause for alarm as it just shows how dynamic human beings and their feelings are. That is, a lower score than the previous week just shows that I had low stress levels for that week. However, a decreasing score sustained throughout the weeks shows that the various interventions measures taken are effective. My grand score was 33.5 for the 8 weeks showing that I have moderate anxiety levels thus I should identify and solve my source of stress before it deteriorates into anxiety disorder. Usually, while diagnosing such physical and psychological condition symbolized by emotional, somatic, behavioral, and cognitive elements, it is always recommended to seek for a second opinion to confirm the prognosis. In my case, I regularly used the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) which usually assesses the severity of the anxiety symptoms.
Created by Dr. Aaron Beck, BAI uses the same scoring quantifiers used in Mind Over Mood Anxiety Inventory (not at all, sometimes, frequently and most of the time) but differs in the number and type of questions to answered. It uses twenty one questions aimed specifically at assessing how the subject felt the previous week. However, it is important to note that these questions which are answerable by either of the four multiple choices, are not just random questions as they are based on the symptoms of the anxiety. With scores totaling at 63, the degree of anxiety as measured using BAI categorizes severe anxiety as those cases with 26 – 63, moderate anxiety 16 – 25 while individuals with mild anxiety would have a score of 8 – 15. Finally, individuals that would be classified as having minimal anxiety levels would have a score of 0 – 7. However, while scoring for anxiety using BAI; it is important to take note of the influence of gender of the subject as the score for female subjects is always four points more than that of men (Leyfer et al 2006). Some of the signs used in scoring for anxiety include tension, light headedness and difficulty in breathing.
Having assessed my anxiety levels, there is need for me to find an intervention measure that would help me perform my duties without fear, worry or uneasiness. One such measure is the behavioral coping skills treatment (CBT), which even though is a short term measure will enable me gain control of my mind (Kadden et al 2010). Arresting the fear that also accompanies while performing my duties is key to my fully gaining satisfaction in what I do in my daily life. CBT also helps in identifying the key areas which always create anxiety in my mind and provides ways of either coping or avoiding them without causing fear and hence anxiety. One of the most important keys to gaining satisfaction in our daily activities is avoiding unnecessary pressure in our works. This can only be achieved when an individual strikes a balance in the chores they perform. I believe this will a major step towards my recovery from anxiety. Even though all these tasks that I perform are dear to me, I must be able to strike a balance so that I would not have any fears of one chore taking the time for another. To achieve this I would have to analyze my daily duties and drive satisfaction in them despite the level of success and also keep busy to avoid being anxious of idling (D’Agostini, 2009).
One of the advantages of using CBT as an intervention measure in cases of anxiety is the platform it presents to both the patient and the therapist to identify the patient’s feelings, thoughts and situations before and after the patient’s daily activities. Moreover, CBT has a profoundly personalized training plan which assists anxiety patients avoid past habits related to different conditions that can cause anxiety disorder and learn healthy skills and behaviors. This is effective because the patients may not have learned of any stress coping strategy before with the problems and issues of adult life (Kadden et al, 2010). However, for a therapist to harness these advantages, he must be able to form a connection with the patient. He must empathize with the patient so that he can fully understand the patient. This is necessary especially when formulating a personalized training plan. Radical ideas that many therapists are always tempted to offer would serve to worsen the situation as the patient would feel totally misunderstood and hence more reasons to be anxious. Anxiety, like mine, usually stem from irrational thoughts loaded with negative and biased view of life’s challenges. For a therapist to fully harness the power of CBT in managing anxiety, there is need for him to fully comprehend the patient’s cultures and beliefs and what would considered rational or irrational in such culture or belief (Kadden et al, 2010). This would enable the therapist to teach the patient a positive attitude towards life and the first step towards this is the use of positive words. This is the essential truth, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
One of the greatest mistakes that therapists make while dealing with adults suffering from various diseases and disorders is the view of patients as grown up and hence tend to rush these patients. True, these are adults but one thing therapists should remember is that these are adult patients. Whenever someone becomes a patient, every effort should be directed towards his or her recovery in the best way possible. The most common victims of this irrational thinking are anxiety patients because on the surface, they tend to be normal people who are just worried about life. However, it is just worrying, it is chronic worrying that, if not treated can lead to anxiety disorders which are more dangerous. Thus, the onus is upon the therapist to understand that patients like develop this problem over a certain period of time hence a therapist cannot just rush me into being rational overnight. This must be through a process; he must first of all understand me point of view before recommending and inculcating rational ideas into my head. Old beliefs cannot be wished away and like a flash, new ideas are implanted into my head. This freedom of time and space is only offered by CBT which requires doctors to treat each case as a new one to avoid duplication of treatment plan which would ultimately fail. This method demands for patience from the therapist and formation of a bond between the therapist and the client so that the patient can open up more to the doctor and ease the treatment process (Kadden et al, 2010).
A personalized training plan in CBT will only work effectively if there is a feedback platform where the therapist can assess whether the plan is working or not. A feedback channel work best for me as it would enable the therapist reassure me of my progress and adjust the methods wherever necessary. Anxiety is a complex disorder that is very easy to trigger thus lack of a channel where the patient is rightly reassured of progress or is seeing attempts by the therapist to make any changes in methods may be another stressor. Hence instead of treating the patient of anxiety, the therapist would only be compounding the problem. I am an evidence-oriented person that if not presented with any evidence of my progress; I would certainly not partake of such ideas. Moreover, it is important for the strategies to be reviewed each and every time for every stage of progress requires new strategies. A feedback channel may also help in bringing to light, new causes of anxiety that the patient might have overlooked and not yet revealed. From the feedback from the patient, the therapist would be also be able to evaluate which treatment plan best works for the patient. It is through this channel that the therapist would be able to review to the patient, now and again, facts and thoughts so as to enable the patient have a rational thinking (D’Agostini, 2009).
CBT is an all encompassing method aims at evaluating the life of the patient from dawn to dusk. One of the greatest challenges that I face in my daily life is the ability to wake up with a positive attitude. The first thing that comes to my mind when I wake up is worrying; worrying about my ability to accomplish all the responsibilities that will come my way for that day. However, one of the recommendations of CBT to patients is the need to wake up with a positive attitude. Moreover, it recommends that patients should consider all the little things that have occurred in their lives. Hence, patients should draw inspirations from these things in their lives and harness a positive energy from such things to drive the patient’s cog in the wheel of activities throughout the day. Because the finest things usually happen to everyone and even if they are minor or insignificant, they are essential in changing how the mind thinks. This implies that one should begin the day with a number of minutes on constructive affirmations. Inform your body how you would want the day to be. Work on roles right away from dawn to evening since a slight inactivity will make the mind think of anxiety (D’Agostini, 2009). A person should also set up goals and put all efforts daily on achieving them. This activity will focus the patient’s thoughts and desires away from threats and anxieties towards things that are constructive and beneficial. Such would help me a great deal in dealing with my anxiety problems.
When we seek for support and we share, we will realize that everyone has problems experienced every day and some even have more challenging issues than ours. For instance, my problem I should talk and discuss the issues with my husband and try to build a balance on some of the household duties and talking care of the children. Talking and sharing our feelings may reduce the effects as some of them are put in the right locations as long as we present them objectively, and with an actual feeling to reduce the anxiety. Sometimes the perceived causes of fears, uneasiness or worry can be traced to the lack of assurance that some cares. Anxiety may also be reduced by participating in physical fitness. This may include swimming, walking, and aerobics, playing soccer, or any other fascinating game (Adavic, 2005). In conclusion, this paper will allow me to identify my current stressors, learn more effective coping skills and improve my thought process. I will be able to control my fears and minimize the stressors which are impacting my daily functioning.
References
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Davison, G. C. (2008). Abnormal Psychology. Toronto: Veronica Visentin.
D’Agostini, G. (2009). Overcoming priors anxiety. International Journal of Psychoanalysis,
5(2): 56-78.
Greenberger, D. & Padesky, C. (1995). Mind over mood. New York, NY.
Kadden, R. et al. (2010). Cognitive behavioral coping skills therapy manual: A Clinical Research Guide for Therapists. 3(5): 43-65.
ADAVIC. (2005). The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook (3rd Edition). Journal of anxiety disorders,
3(12): 33 – 67.
