Category: Mental Health

A Complete Guide to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Kristin Hall, FNP Medically reviewed by Kristin Hall, FNP Written by Our Editorial Team Last updated 11/16/2020

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder that can cause people to constantly and persistently experience feelings of anxiety, worry, tension and nervousness.

It’s worthy to note that GAD is unlike a phobia, because a phobia is connected to a specific object or situation, whereas the anxiety from GAD is a general, all-encompassing feeling of persistent dread and unease.

People who have generalized anxiety disorder typically feel nervous and stressed, even when there’s no logical reason for this. For example, they may feel anxious in a common, everyday situation, with no clear cause.

Generalized anxiety disorder is a common disorder, affecting approximately 5.7 percent of US adults at some point in life. Like other anxiety disorders, it can vary in severity, causing severe symptoms for some and less significant symptoms for others.

Luckily, generalized anxiety disorder is treatable.

Today, a range of treatment options, including medication and therapy, are available to manage the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and allow people affected by GAD to live normal lives.

Below, we’ve explained what generalized anxiety disorder is, as well as the symptoms you may experience if you have GAD.

We’ve also listed and explained the causes and major risk factors that can contribute to anxiety disorders such as GAD.

Finally, we’ve explained how generalized anxiety disorder can be treated and managed using a range of options, including medication, therapy and changes to your lifestyle.

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Believe in yourself, you CAN get out of dark world of depression/anxiety by Vedant Vyas

I had done various kinds of blood tests but mostly everything was coming normal except Vitamin D. I took OTC Vitamin D but provided no relief and it worsened my health. I then started seeing a therapist for CBT but still had no relief in physical symptoms. I then started seeing a psychiatrist and was put on antidepressants. A couple of antidepressants didn’t work and, on the contrary, made me feel worse. I started having body pains all over my body, had low libido, no motivation to do any work, and difficulty getting up and going to work. I was also given anti-seizure meds, pain reliever meds, nerve damage meds, and so many other meds but nothing worked.

I was the only bread earner in my family and I had to feed my wife and child. Despite all these difficulties, I still went to work every day to feed my family. At my workplace people didn’t care much about me. Unfortunately, my parents, my wife, my brother and his wife provided absolutely no help to me. They did not understand my condition and what mental health does to the body and mind. I had even been mocked by my own parents a couple of times, saying that I had become a negative person and that they would provide no help in raising my children. I was against the whole world and no one was with me.

Instead, my parents continued supporting my brother’s family and everyone in my family pretty much broke relations with me. My in-laws live nearby and instead of providing help and understanding the situation, they did little as well. Despite me begging my wife to get some help from her parents as they were nearby and in good health, she did not reach out to them because she wanted her parents to enjoy their life instead and not bothered about our situation. My family failed to understand that if I died, who would take care of others in the family and my children?

Despite seeing so many doctors, nothing concrete was coming out in the medical diagnosis except that I also have IBS and there is no medicine to help it.  I have always been good my entire life, why did all these sufferings happen in my life? I don’t have an answer to this question, and none of us ever will find an answer to that question.

However, in this whole experience, I became a spiritual person. I started praying to God. I participated in a couple of webinars offered by ADAA. In therapy, I often heard that family and friends are the best resources to reach out first. But what happens when your own family and friends ditch you? It creates even more shock to the patient and worsens the situation. I learned that people move on as a situation changes but only I can help myself.

Slowly and steadily, I crafted a strategy to fight the situation. I believed that all these negativities around me can be overcome by positivity and focusing on the good things. I read motivational books, change how I perceive things, accept the bad days but don’t let it take over me but instead I learn to swim out of it, do my prayers, etc. The bad days are not over yet, but I am a more capable person than before to tackle the challenges.

Today I would like to shout out to those strong people out there who struggle every day in their life and no one is with them, not even their family and friends stay with them unfortunately. Stay strong, believe in yourself, and believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Good days will come!!

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A sense of belonging

This is perhaps the most common and elusive effect: feeling like an outsider, shut out, with her nose pressed against the glass of a store everyone else seems to have access to. That feeling may coexist with a stable and emotionally nurturing marriage and partnership, close ties to children of her own, and a circle of friends. It’s like an overturned can of stain that seeps into and discolors all the good things in life.

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The things the unloved daughter longs for in adulthood

Again, these are broad generalizations, and not every unloved daughter will necessarily feel deprived of every single one. But the chances are good that if you were unloved in childhood by your mother, criticized or marginalized, made to feel less than or ignored, many of these deep-rooted longings may coexist with and contradict all manner of success and achievement. That’s the power of these early experiences; the ways in which they may continue to shape us aren’t necessarily rational and can be very counterintuitive.

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What may prompt an individual’s recognition

Women back into discovery more often than not. Sometimes it becomes clear in therapy, but usually she’s gone into therapy to explore her current unhappiness (e.g., failed relationships, difficulty connecting or achieving goals, and other ancillary problems), and the connection to childhood emerges; that said, many daughters have commented that they were in therapy for years without ever tracing the problems of the present back to their roots.

For some, caring relationships in adulthood highlight the abusive or withholding nature of their childhood treatment. Others come to the realization, because someone points it out to them. For some, becoming a mother shines a light. Some finally see when their mothers treat their children as they were treated or when, despite efforts to set boundaries and rules, their mothers continue to verbally abuse them.

And then there’s just readiness. A daughter sees because she’s finally ready to see, because some internal tipping point is reached. This sounds mystical, but as I explain in my book, Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life, it is the slow pace of revelation.

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The barriers that prevent us from seeing clearly

While you may be conscious of how lousy your childhood treatment made you feel, chances are good that you cannot see its effect on you; most of the behaviors we adopt to get through are unconscious. Additionally, there are other forces at play that prevent you from recognition:

You’ve normalized your childhood experiences.

You like thinking that the past is the past, and you’re free.

You’re not ready to act or react to your childhood treatment.

You want to be like everyone else. And you are ashamed of your childhood.

You’re afraid your treatment was justified, and it’s all your fault.

More than anything, you want your mother to love you. Maybe she will. Soon?

Your alternating hope and denial keeps you stuck.

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7 Things an Unloved Daughter Longs for as an Adult 3. True self-confidence. Posted October 11, 2018 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

While there are meaningful differences in every unloved daughter’s story, there are nonetheless broad commonalities. Understanding them and seeing the role each plays in your own life can be the first of many steps towards healing.

Some of these are consciously perceived, though we may not put them in context and connect them to childhood experiences for years and years. Anecdotally at least — from my research and interviews over the last 20 years — recognition of how childhood experiences affect the present usually doesn’t begin until a woman is in her late 30s or 40s, and often later.

If you’ve had a difficult childhood and felt under the thumb of a controlling, combative, or narcissistic mother, young adulthood brings with it a sense of opportunity as you literally get out from under by moving. Alas, the reality is, chances are good that you’re not seeing how much emotional baggage accompanies you on the trip out. Why is recognition so slow?

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The Quintessential Codependent Sheds Her Patterns….slowly…

These are the writings of a girl who knows a guy not very well and who knows that she is coming to think somewhat obsessively…and wants to reflect on it and pull herself out… What a powerful pattern it is…Codependence “What’s going to happen if I don’t talk to Gave soon? Like right now? He […]

The Quintessential Codependent Sheds Her Patterns….slowly…