THE HIDDEN FACES OF ANXIETY - PART 2 - understanding the cause of anxiety to better deal with it!
Opdateret: 23. aug.
Welcome to Part 2 of the 3 part series of the article about anxiety.
In this part I will concentrate on inquiring about anxiety as a sign of stress and as a result of a traumatic experience.
If you have not read Part 1 you can read it here:
PART 1 covers:
Introduction
Signs of anxiety
Some points that I challenge about anxiety
How I approach it
What is anxiety and what might be behind anxiety - it's functionality
Anxiety from an existential point of view
ANXIETY AS A SIGN OF STRESS
A period of stress can be caused by work environment, a toxic relationship, a crises in the family (death, illness, loss of a job, change in the financial situation, economic stress) and other.
A long (or relatively long) period of stress means:
we did not feel and listened to our limits and needs
we have beed in a situation/context where our limits and needs have been crossed
we have allowed our limits to be crossed and have done more than we physically and psychologically can contain.
we have been disconnected from our inner world, our emotions and our body.
When we are in a period of stress, we are in a survival mode. Survival mode means a lot of reaction and predominance of a state of flight, fight or freeze.
Biologically, our body cannot detoxify the stress hormons and cannot really replenish properly because it's in a state of alert - cortisol and adrenalin are constantly released.
Emotionally, there is no time to feel so a lot of emotions are suppressed. To allow to feel is to connect to our inner world and that needs us to stop and listen. When in survival, our system feels a sense of danger, there is high tempo and busyness - that allows us to not be aware of ourselves.
Anxiety signs can come as body reactions - higher heartbeat rate (even when we rest),, trembling and shortness of breath - from times can feel as panic attack.
Other signs of anxiety - a constant inner worry, feeling in danger, perceiving the world/others against us, thought spiralling, need of control increases and OCD like behavior.
Anxiety signals that:
our body is in overload, over compensates and is almost all the time using energy that does not have or is about to finish.
our brain is in overload of the information that needs to process and the pressure has been too high for too long
our emotional capacity is very limited, almost non.
Because anxiety hides in the sens that the body’s reactions are not perceived as psychological signs of alarm but as physical disease reactions - it has been an obvious treatment strategy to help become aware of anxiety and train to endure the body’s reactions. It can be helpful from a perspective of developing the inadequate emotional capacity.
BUT usually and basically it's the emotional capacity, the ability for being in contact with oneself (to feel oneself) and the sense of self (self understanding) that has been blocked/frozen - that is why it's not so simple as in - all the forms of anxiety can just be trained away (Sørensen).
I find the following passage from Sørensen about anxiety important to be aware of:
"When relating to anxiety, we can look at an association. Anyone who has done sport and been to the training center knows that in order to develop the body’s musculature and function you cannot avoid training soreness.
It is important to differentiate between training soreness and overload.
Training soreness is the uncomfortable pain that indicates that the body’s capacity is being expanded. The pain from overload is different - it's a sign that the body is being misused/abused in the form of over training.
In the same way it is necessary to be aware of the difference between anxiety as training soreness and anxiety as overload.
In its origin, anxiety is a sign that the capacity of the psyche is being exceeded (Mental capacity is being stretched to the limit/The psyche is reaching its breaking point) - especially regarding the emotional containing capacity.
So one can overtrain both physically and psychologically in a way that the emotional capacity instead of getting wider/bigger, it gets smaller/decreases, because the person is being overloaded. "
As a conclusion from what I have written so far about anxiety and the connection to stress - the first step to addressing anxiety is to be curios about what it wants to tell you. One can begin a process of inquiry with:
understanding why the anxiety is there - a stress period in this case
understanding how you reached this point - usually there is a cycle and some patterns that are being repeated and have to do with boundaries and our survival strategies.
after understanding comes the period with the healing process and changing from survival to living a more aware life.
You can see how just managing the anxiety can be counter productive. I associate it with taking a painkiller for your headache. The pain will be numbed but the cause will still be there and not dealt with.
ANXIETY AS RESULT OF A TRAUMATIC EVENT
When I talk about a traumatic experience it can be wether something that happens once or something that is happening over time.
When one has experienced a traumatic event - many times anxiety persists after the event and/or it can culminate into panic attacks.
It is the body's natural healthy reaction after experiencing a traumatic event, because our body is very intelligent and it communicates to us - "I still feel in danger".
In case of a continuous traumatic experience - we can feel anxiety while the experience lasts and can be there as a part of the protecting mechanism - it helps us survive.
Examples of traumatic experiences that happen once:
sexual assault
physical assault
traffic accident
the sudden unexpected loss of a loved one
Examples of how anxiety can manifest: - f eg if one has experienced sexual abuse - while coming home late and in the dark, you might be extra alert - you look constantly around, and have your hand ready to grab your keys or have them already in your hand. .If you see a mand, your heart might begin to pound, you begin to sweat - this is how your body wants to protect you - by signaling potential danger.
If case of trafik accident - you might not be able to drive or use cars as transportation.
Examples of traumatic experiences that are continuous:
sexual abuse over time (f eg in childhood)
psychological or/and physical abuse in a close relationship
bulling at school or at the working place
human trafficking - exploitation into prostitution or forced labor
How anxiety can manifest - in case of psychological abuse - worry/fear to do something wrong or afraid to make people angry. In case of sexual abuse - a panik attack can be triggered by hearing a specific voice or smell that the brain associates with what happened. For the most, it does not have a logical connection and it makes no sense - but it makes sense for our body's survival mechanism and there is always a good reason why our body reacts as it reacts.
As we can see, anxiety can manifest as a body reaction.
But anxiety can also be an inner emotional state. If we take the example of someone who experienced loss and consider it through the lenses that anxiety covers deeper emotions (see Sørensen in Part 1 - chapter about anxiety's function) - then anxiety could cover
the fear of dying (that has been triggered by the loss of the loved one)
the abandonment one feels with the loss of the loved one
the fear to grieve because that would mean to confront the abandonment or the sadness of the loss
the deep pain and sadness of the loss - anxiety protects from feeling it because of fear to drown in that pain and never recover ....
What is needed:
The time needed for the healing process (and how long the anxiety will persist) depends on the gravity of what happened, on how long it lasted and on the person's own life conditions and ressources.
The body needs time to adapt to the fact that it's safe again and that means that, for a period of time, it will whether generally feel in danger or will be triggered in different situations that it will perceive as dangerous. The body and the mind in this case are not aligned - logically we see that we are not in danger but the body feels otherwise.
What is helpful:
time
patience
meeting body's reactions with kindness and compassion
getting to know our body and helping it back into feeling safe - helping the alignment process between body and mind - by helping the body back into here and now
Click here to continue to Part 3 of the article that covers:
Anxiety as cover for old wounds - childhood relational trauma - the connection to attachment and the connection to shame.
Some words about our environment and it's relationship to anxiety
The literature that I use for inspiration is written in Danish - the translation is mine both of the text and the titles.
Literature references:
Lars Sørensen "Shame - innate and learned/acquired. When shame leads to soul murder" (The original title: "Skam - medfødt og tillært. Når skam fører til sjælemord".) Hans Rietzels Forlag 2013
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