Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) sees a person unable to switch off this usually very helpful evolutionary response. GAD sees a person extremely worried and vigilant all the time, in the absence of a clear and present danger. It can mean that worries run rife in a person’s mind, often over and over again in a horrible loop. They can prevent you from getting things done, prevent you from enjoying life, prevent you from leaving your house and leave you in a state of near-constant distress. This depleting monster, GAD, can in time introduce you to its just-as-evil business partner, depression. Some people it introduces to its pitiless, muscly big brother, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Causes of GAD are difficult to pinpoint. Chemical? Possibly. Traumatic events? Also yes. Personality style can leave you vulnerable too, so it may be a combination of all these factors. Sufferers of other mental illnesses can experience anxiety too, for example a person with a psychotic illness can be extremely anxious about their beliefs of being under surveillance, or being poisoned or externally controlled or otherwise threatened, or hearing horrible things said about them by a hallucinatory voice. These anxiety-provoking experiences belong in a different cluster than GAD though because the causes are different.
Fortunately, there are effective treatments for GAD. These include psychological counselling and education, where a person learns that their anxiety won’t kill them, although it can often feel like it will. They will also learn techniques to challenge the chain of thoughts that lead to anxiety.
Cruelly, GAD sufferers can find the idea of treatment the most anxiety-provoking prospect of all. You will have to face your fears and face their origins. Terrifying. But worth it in the long haul. Because long term, if left untreated, GAD will certainly have an adverse impact on your relationships and your well-being, both physical and psychological. For one example, GAD often leads to poor sleep, and the adverse impact of poor sleep has been extensively documented.
Medicines can have a role to play in the treatment of anxiety but psychological treatment is far more important. Any sedating medication can cover up anxiety and take the sharpness off its teeth. For example, diazepam (or valium) or strong opiates. Even alcohol. They’ll cover it up for a while, but not treat the cause. It will be right there waiting at the other end, probably with an even sharper bite. A group of antidepressant medications (called SSRIs) can help treat anxiety, especially in interrupting those ruminating fears that go looping and looping around in a person’s mind. They can give a GAD sufferer just enough relief to benefit more fully from their psychological treatment, just enough relief to stop relying on alcohol or other drugs to take the edge off. Enough relief to function, but not to fully fix the problem.
