What is Anxiety?

You probably clicked on this page because you know the struggles of anxiety. We both know that anxiety can be overwhelming.  But before we talk more about anxiety as something which stresses people out, let's get a full picture of what it is! 

Anxiety is normal and healthy response to stress, uncertainty, or suspected danger. It has kept groups of people and individuals out of danger and is something that we actually need. Anxiety keeps us from falling off a cliff, trying to pet a wild tiger, or keeps us ready for action if a situation just doesn't feel right. Anxiety is a wonderful thing because it keeps us safe. 

However, anxiety isn't always helpful and sometimes creates problems. Your boss calls you in for a one-on-one meeting and your thoughts spiral: what did I do wrong? Your heart is beating so hard you worry if you'll be okay. You think that you're about to get fired, and if you're fired, you'll have to find another job or you'll lose your house. And the anxiety spiral continues. 

Even though you may logically know that the boss is probably calling you in for a meeting to discuss something completely unrelated to your worries, your nervous system believes otherwise. When the brain interprets a situation and signals "danger", the nervous system responds by getting you ready to take action. The nervous system can't discern whether the perceived threat is real or imagined. Because of this, your nervous system lights up when stressed, even if there is no physical danger, in the same way that it lights up when it encounters a real dangerous situation. Your nervous system doesn't know the difference between being called into the office by your boss and entering into a active bear den.

How Anxiety Impacts The Day to Day

Chronic anxiety can have long term impacts on mental and physical wellbeing when left unaddressed.

People impacted by anxiety may notice overanalyzing situations, overthinking, feeling self conscious or self critical, racing thoughts, constant worry, and feeling overwhelmed. They may have a hard time relaxing, making decisions, or falling sleep, and may express feeling irritable, nervous, or having a sense of "impending doom".

Sometimes people discuss being impacted by physical symptoms, such as an upset stomach, uncontrollable trembling, feeling lightheaded, fast breathing, sweaty palms, face turning red, or a heart pounding. These experiences can make it hard to function and resume daily responsibilities. It can make it hard to hold conversations with people, focus on work, get a healthy amount of sleep, and other things that you'd like to be doing.

Origins of Anxiety

Anxiety often has roots in early attachments or repeated experiences that "taught" a person how they should see themselves in the world. Experiences throughout our lives affect how we see ourselves and what our brain interprets as threatening, even if there is no physical danger. The brain can easily interpret experiences as physically dangerous when you are actually safe. 

Because humans are social beings and wired for connection, humans depend on each other for survival. Cooperation and mutual kindness has helped us grow and thrive both individually and collectively. This is also true during our youngest years. We need a caregiver in order to survive, and our wellbeing and needs being met are directly tied to our earliest relationships.

We need other people, whether they are parents, teachers, authority figures, or peers, to support us and recognize our needs.

Because our brain and nervous system are wired for our survival and we need people "on our side" for our wellbeing, relational stressors trigger the same alarm bells that physical threats to safety do. That is why being called in for a meeting with your boss or your friend saying "we need to talk about something you said" triggers the same nervous system response as a real threat to your safety would.

Early Relationships

Your earliest relationships are foundational, and they become a "blueprint" for how you see yourself, the world, and other people around you. They form attachment patterns, which affects how you show up within your closest relationships.

There are four basic attachment patterns: secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. These are often formed by repetitive experiences with parents/caregivers. Many times caregivers unintentionally affect healthy attachment, and this is not coming from a place of blame for parents. 

Sometimes children play roles within the family, such as peacekeepers, caretakers, or using humor to regulate the emotional state of others. These are adaptive responses to stress within the family and are meeting a child's attachment needs, but later in life, this may impact the person's sense of self. For example, they may feel a need to please others even when they don't want to or feel a responsibility for others' emotional states. Some people also want to practice having healthier responses, now that they are in a place as an adult where they can work through things and learn different ways of communicating with family members. Through therapy, we look at your childhood experiences with compassion and focus on the impact of what you experienced rather than assigning blame. 

Most of the time when someone is experiencing a pain point in their adult life, the wound can be traced back to relational experiences from childhood or earlier memories. Even experiences that that don't seem to have relational roots often do, such as feeling unsafe after having a car accident. There often are earlier experiences unconsciously contributing to feeling anxious, vulnerable, or uncertain of their future. 

To learn more about the impact of early relationships, check out the following pages. The links below go into further into these topics, and you're free to explore whichever resonate with your experiences or what you're wanting to learn more about it. 

To learn more about the impact of a person's upbringing on their sense of security within themselves, with others, and being in the world, check out attachment wounds. 

To learn more about the when parents or caregivers, even if unintentional, missed the emotional or psychological needs of a child, check out childhood emotional neglect (CEN). 

To learn about the impact of childhood trauma, which includes many types of traumatic experiences, head to that page.

Repeated Experiences

Repeated experiences reinforce the impacts of an event, whether it's a helpful impact or a hurtful impact. Whatever happens over and over and over often carries more weight than something that happened just once. These repeated experiences start to build up over time and may even feel like patterns that you can't change. 

Often people begin forming a sense of identity with the repeated pattern and believe that they are the exception. They may think positively about others and feel negatively about themselves. For example, someone struggling with people pleasing may say, "other people can advocate for their needs but I shouldn't". Here's another example: repeated experiences of feeling invalidated may leave someone doubting themselves, seeking validation from others, or having a hard time identifying their needs. This impacts their emotional / mental wellbeing, self esteem and confidence, and the quality of their relationships.

Repeated experiences impact us, whether they are with friends, family, coworkers/peers, teachers, bosses, parents, and so on. These patterns begin to feel predictable and often people feel "stuck" or helpless within the cycle. 

The patterns impact your sense of self, and can contribute to social anxiety and it being hard to communicate with others. You may feel self conscious, which contributes further to anxiety. For example, if someone has repeated experiences of being bullied or rejected by others, they may experience anxiety or try to avoid rejection. This creates loneliness and lack of confidence, which impacts their self esteem.

Learn more about social anxiety.

Learn more about self worth and self esteem. 

Learn about the repeated experience of emotional neglect.

Learn more about childhood trauma.

Reducing Anxiety Through Therapy 

Anxiety can be tough, and therapy provides a space to talk through your stressors, learn and practice new skills, gently lessen avoidance, and identify your needs. There are many different types of evidence-based therapy for treating anxiety, such as mindfulness, CBT, ACT, DBT, and so on. These types of therapy are often the first in line, used when someone is seeking therapy for the first time. The goal of these therapies is to manage or reduce symptoms, change behavior, and building better skills. 

Sometimes a client may come to me, and as we are talking, I see that certain skills might be beneficial to learn, they want to get their thoughts out, or there is a problem in their life that they want help sorting through. In these cases, integrative therapy can be very beneficial. In integrative therapy, I draw from several types of evidence-based therapy and personalize sessions according to your needs. I prefer to take a non-pathologizing approach and focus on building a positive, therapeutic relationship with you, making therapy an emotionally safe place.

Working Through Anxiety with EMDR

While many people benefit from traditional talk therapy, I speak with people regularly who feel like they need something different than skill building or talking through their problems. Many people have incredible insight into their patterns and "intellectualize" things, making talk therapy not always the most effective route. EMDR provides another way.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based therapy for treating anxiety, particularly anxiety that is part of a pattern and that skills just don't seem to reach. Examples of this includes relational anxiety, emotionally "stuck" memories, negative views of oneself, and negative relational experiences such as shame, embarrassment, feeling rejected, or overwhelm. EMDR works through what therapists call "negative self beliefs", which are negative views/beliefs someone holds about themselves. Examples of negative self beliefs are "I'm not good enough", "I am worthless", "my needs are less important than others' needs", "I'll never get better", "something is wrong with me", "I always mess up", and the list goes on. 

EMDR helps people reprocess emotionally "stuck" patterns or negative memories, reconnect with their confidence, and have a healthy, stable, and realistic view of themselves.

Online Anxiety Therapy in Georgia

I offer talk therapy and EMDR therapy online in the state of Georgia. I use adapted therapy techniques and skills for an online format. 

Online therapy has several benefits, such as being able to participate in sessions through the comfort of your own home and making certain types of therapy more accessible across the state. Sessions are done through secure online platforms and are confidential. 

Studies show that online therapy is just as effective as in-person therapy, and people get real benefit from our work together. If you're looking to work through anxiety, please reach out or schedule a free consultation. If you've checked out my bio and believe we may be a good fit, follow the link below and we can identify your needs and discuss if we are a good fit.