Ireland (Photo credit: Trent Strohm)
Recently I took a trip to Ireland with my family to visit some of my husband’s relatives, and throughout our stay there were numerous enquiries about people’s general health, ongoing health issues and recent operations. Yet how my battle with anxiety was going was never mentioned. Not because they weren’t interested or didn’t care, but because they didn’t know. There was plenty of opportunity to bring it up, and in fact no reason that they didn’t know already – irish people love to know everything they can about everyone – I’m sure they have asked after me during several phone conversations. Yet I nor anyone else refered to it, even though every night I filled out a panic diary as part of the CBT I’m having, and had to battle daily with some sort of anxiety. It wasn’t until I was on the ferry back that I wondered why? Why am I ashamed? Why is it such a taboo?When someone has a physical condition, people naturally sympathise, even if they haven’t had that condition, everyone has been in pain or felt sick. But, the same could be said for anxiety; everyone has felt nervous at some point. So why do I think that people won’t understand? Maybe that’s the problem: because everyone has felt anxiety at some point, they think they do know how it feels and it’s not that bad. Also, for most people, there is generally a reason for it which makes it more manageable – again, it’s not that bad. So I’d have to explain why this is different, worse, debilitating, to people who didn’t really get it. Would they even believe me? For the most part I can hide how I am feeling inside or I can make a reasonable excuse to leave so people don’t see me at my worst. Would them knowing make the anxiety worse? If they knew,would feel I was under constant surveillance for signs of anxiety? Would I simply regret telling them?Of course the answer to these last questions is no. In other areas of my life, such as work, I have needed to be very open and generally it has helped. They may not have understood but then they don’t need to offer some support. Actually, I have found that more people than I thought do really understand as by opening up they have confided that they also suffer from panic attacks and anxiety and I have felt able to support them. I have one friend who is have CBT the same time as me; a fact I would never know if I hadn’t confided in how I was feeling. It is said that anxiety of one kind or another will affect one in three people at some point in their life, so by opening up and sharing stories with the people we know we can raise awareness of this taboo subject and help each other in the process.
Next time I go to Ireland I’m just going to mention it – see what happens.
Related articles
- Early screening for anxiety disorders in children helps prevent mental health concerns: UBC study (eurekalert.org)
- Anxiety (evatenter.wordpress.com)
- Anxiety: a very modern malaise (telegraph.co.uk)
- Are we the Anxiety Generation? (dramykids.com)
- My Anxiety and My Questions For You (liftingtheclouds.wordpress.com)
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