I was watching Dr. Ramani Durvasula, speaking on a series about Anxiety disorder.
For those who are curious on the subject, check her out because she is very good at explaining things in a very simple way:
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3.
To make a summary, anxiety disorder affects 40 million adults in the U.S., making it the most common mental health condition. It's highly treatable, yet only one-third of those suffering actually receive treatment.
They are speaking about US in this case, but I reckon it's the same (common condition) everywhere, which easily gets dismissed.
She also says that in all the clients coming in with depression, a substance use issue, relationship problems, school problems, you name it. In all of these patterns, anxiety becomes a core issue.
There is not a single mental illness out there for which anxiety is not a key piece.
The only one where it's not, is psychopathy, apparently. Because a person who is a psychopath feels no anxiety.
People don't know "how much is too much to worry". How much is when the worry crosses the line, because it's not that cut-and-dried, and it varies from person to person, depending where are you in life.
So, for example, if the person is already going through a difficult time, it may take a smaller threshold of a problem to push them into relatively paralytic anxiety. Plus, individual differences and how we manage to cope with it, are a factor too.
The third part in particular is very interesting, where she explains the causes of each type, whether is culture, our biology, demographics, psychological, our environment and the social influences.
She says is a mix of all, but she puts a lot of weight on the psychological side - which she calls misreading/misintrepreting things and situations - as well as the environment and social influences.
She also says, that it's not unusual for people who have eating disorders to also be very, very anxious.
So a lot of anxiety comes from a lot of negative self-talk, that just sort of accumulates over time. Perfectionism is highly correlated with anxiety. The idea that unless it's perfect I can't do it, and what that does is that people often don't deliver because of that, which creates more anxiety.
Also people having very very unusually, almost unrealistically high standards, is a major contributor to anxiety and in modern time this is a big problem. Being told they have to be perfect, have perfect career, the perfect body, perfect house etc. The sense of not measuring up to a certain expectation or bar, that's a huge contributor anxiety.
I think athletes in general, especially some like figure skaters and gymnasts, and women in particular, are at high risk, when it comes to perfectionism, high standarts and social influences. Just like in art, actresses would be more under pressure to preserve certain image, perfectionism, like beauty and "youth".
