Brent started to work with me after his wife, Carla, suddenly decided to leave the marriage. They had been married five years and Brent thought everything was fine. Then Brent became ill and Carla withdrew. And then she was gone.

Brent was devastated. He loved Carla and wanted her back. However, he soon learned that she had not been honest with him, even from the beginning of their relationship. He learned that she had been more interested in his money than in him. She was ruthlessly going after his money.

After a couple of months, Brent was doing better. He had let go of Carla and had started to date. Then Carla sent him an email where her tone was softer then it had been, and this sent Brent back into anxiety.

“I have been waking up anxious every morning,” Brent told me in one of our phone sessions. “And feeling anxiety a lot during the day.”

“Brent, what are you telling yourself about Carla?”

“I keep wishing that things were back the way they were. I love her and I want her back. Her email made me think that things could be back the way they were.”

“Brent, Carla left you when you were really sick. She lacked any compassion for you. You told me that you had noticed her lack of compassion toward other people as well. Then she told you that she never loved you. Now she is going after your money, even though she earns her own. You are not in reality about who Carla is. You are making her up, and this is what is causing your anxiety. Your inner child – your feeling self – is letting you know with this anxiety that you are off track in your thinking, that your thinking is not based in reality. And your inner child is anxious that you are going to abandon him by going after someone who is not a loving person, while pretending that she is.”

“But I thought she was a loving person. She is a loving person deep down. If she went into counseling with me, we could work this out.”

“Perhaps, but this is not who she is choosing to be. You are not accepting the reality of who she is choosing to be. You will always feel anxious when you do not accept the reality of things. You keep thinking that if you say the right thing or do the right things, not only will she come back, but she will be willing to deal with herself and be who you want her to be. None of this is reality. She has given you no indication that she is willing to go into counseling with you, no indication that she is interested in changing. You are making all of this up, and this is causing your anxiety.”

“I know that you are right, but this is so hard. It is so hard to let go.”

“Yes, your wounded ego self wants to believe that you have control over something that you have no control over. You are having a hard time letting go of control. But trying to control something over which you have no control will always create anxiety. You are not being in reality about what you have control over and what you don’t have control over.”

“Yes, I see that. I want control over getting Carla to be the way I thought she was. I don’t even like who she is right now, but I don’t want to accept that this is who she is choosing to be. I can see that I need to accept this reality and not keep thinking that I can get her to come back and to be the way I thought she was. Ah, I am starting to feel better! The anxiety is going away.”

Anxiety results from not accepting how things are and of trying to control things that you cannot control.

First of all, before we start to describe what the symptoms of anxiety are, let’s first establish what anxiety is and its purpose. Anxiety is a survival mechanism. It exists to remove any perceived danger from our environment by either fighting it or running away from it.

A few thousand years ago, when man was a hunter-gatherer searching for food in the great outdoors, anxiety played a very important role in preventing our ancestor from becoming some animal’s next meal. If and when confronted by some ferocious beast, anxiety would come into play and give our great, great, great etc. grandparent the wherewithal to either stand and fight the threat or to run away to some safe haven.

In order for this fight or flight mechanism to be effective, certain physiological and psychological changes are temporarily made. These are as follows:

1. Body hair stands on end to give an overall appearance of being bigger.

2. Sweating starts to occur in the hands and feet to enable a better grip whilst running and/or climbing.

3. Adrenalin is released into the bloodstream to give an all-important boost of energy.

4. The body’s normal functions of digestion and cell repair are put on hold and the resources are re-directed to the muscles to enhance strength.

5. Under extreme conditions, the body will excrete in order to reduce weight.

6. Normal breathing is replaced by much shallower breathing and the heart rate increases.

7. Both sight and hearing are heightened.

8. Psychologically, there will be a feeling of discomfort and agitation. This will increase as necessary in order to initialise some sort of action.

So, looking at the above example of our stone-age hunter, we can clearly see that anxiety was indeed a very necessary part of their day-to-day life and no doubt it was instrumental in saving quite a few lives at that stage in our evolution.

But, how on earth can such a mechanism be useful to us in our current society? In certain situations, such as when the job that you’re working on is quickly running out of time, anxiety will help you to focus better by increasing your sight and hearing perceptions and the adrenalin will give you more energy to complete the task. I seriously doubt, though, that such a low level of anxiety would cause involuntary excretion.

However, there are other situations where anxiety rears its head and it isn’t appropriate. Imagine that you’re late for work and that you’re stuck in traffic. No matter how anxious you feel the traffic won’t flow any quicker and as for running away from or fighting the perceived threat that would be impossible.

It’s situations similar to the latter that can bring about anxiety disorders in certain individuals. I know, I used to suffer from an anxiety disorder along with panic disorder and agoraphobia for many years. Until, after many years of searching, I found the cure.

Worry, fear, and anxiety are a normal part of our life. Have you experienced feeling anxious before taking an exam and later find out that you got a higher result more than what you’ve expected? Or, feeling anxious for a job interview and ended up getting hired, or feeling frightened walking down an alley where bad things often happened? Normal anxiety helps us cope in any stressful situation, it also keeps us watchful.

Mental health professional are not concerned with normal anxiety. But, if your anxiety suddenly occur without apparent reason and lasts for weeks to months and happens in most days than not, that is another issue. If anxiety persists in most days than not, and takes longer than six months, it has become an immobilizing disorder.

An anxiety disorder is a recurring and excessive anxiety and worry about events or activities without logical reasons at all lasting for more than six moths and it is interfering with everyday activities, such as going to work, and socializing. A person experiencing anxiety condition finds it difficult to control the feelings of worry and fear. The thing about people with anxiety disorder is that they actually know that what they think of feel is not real and that they are just made-up.

The common anxiety disorders are Panic Disorder, Social Phobia, Agoraphobia, Specific Phobia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Separation Anxiety, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, and Selective Mutism.

A person with anxiety condition may suffer different anxiety disorder symptoms. And because no two individuals are the same, the anxiety disorder symptoms may vary from one person to the other.

The physical symptoms of anxiety disorder are cause by brain sending messages to parts of the body to prepare for the flight-to-fight response. The lungs, heart, and other parts of the body work faster and the brain releases stress hormones, including adrenaline, and that explains that physical symptoms.

Anxiety disorder symptoms may experience physically can include but not limited to:
Abdominal discomfort
Diarrhea
Dry mouth
Rapid heartbeat or palpitations
Tightness or pain in chest
Shortness of breath
Dizziness
Frequent urination
Difficulty swallowing

Anxiety disorder symptoms may experience psychologically can include:
Insomnia
Irritability
Inability to concentrate
Fear of going crazy or dying
Feeling unreal and not in control of your behavior

There are several types of anxiety disorders and sometimes they are associated with physical problem such alcohol and drug abuse. Anxiety is the main symptoms of other mental illness called anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorder symptoms may differ from the symptoms of other anxiety disorders, but all the symptoms cluster around excessive, irrational fear and dread.

For people with anxiety condition, cheer up! Your world does not stop there because there is cure for anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are curable and there are two types of treatments available for anxiety disorder- medication and psychotherapy. But, it is said that the proven most effective way to treat anxiety sufferers is psychotherapy.