Living with Anxiety: Confrontation and Ways to Cope

Credit: Elizabeth Gadd

A Little Stress is a Good Thing, But...

The human brain hard-wires worry. Worry helps us prepare for potential challenges. It’s only natural to be anxious when turbulence causes a plane flight to be particularly bumpy, for example. It is also to be expected that the next time you contemplate flying, you will experience some of that anxiety, especially if the weather is threatening. However, living with anxiety can take this normal, temporary reaction to stress and turn it into something that interferes with daily life.

When Worry Goes Out of Control

Anxiety becomes a disorder only when worrying goes off the rails. “If we look more closely, it seems that many of these same people begin to develop a general maladaptive framework for operating in the world,” notes anxiety expert R. Reid Wilson, Ph.D. Someone living with anxiety disorder develops a belief system that danger and loss of control of one’s circumstances can come quickly and without warning.

Safety becomes the most important thing. People view the discomfort of anxiety itself as the enemy, something to rid themselves of at all costs. Either by escaping or morbid worry or both. They “don’t want to feel any distress, and the goal of the worry is to stop or avoid uncomfortable symptoms as soon as they arrive,” Wilson says. For those living with anxiety, this constant drive to avoid discomfort can make everyday situations feel overwhelming.

Living with Anxiety: Bracing for the Worst Outcome

Two other factors add to the intractability of anxiety disorder, Wilson adds: “People who are prone to anxiety doubt that they have the inner resources to manage their problems, so they use worry to brace for the worst outcome…” And secondly, “Anxious people don’t want to make mistakes, believing they will have dire consequences.” This suite of unhealthy beliefs becomes what Wilson calls “a powerful force structured within a powerful fortress.” Shining a light on the realities of living with anxiety hopefully inspires compassion in those who may not express understanding. 

Paradoxically, then, anxiety disorder doesn’t mean the fact of being anxious. Fear of anxiety causes one to be paralyzed with worry, which leads to anxiety disorder, engagement in harmful escapist behaviors, and the inability to act on one’s environment to make healthy changes. That’s the anxiety disorder game. When you play the game by anxiety’s rules, anxiety wins.

Next: Shifting the Game Plan When Living with Anxiety