I sometimes read advice columns. Think, Dear Amy, Dear Abby, Carolyn Hax and so on. It seems like over the past several years many advice seekers mention that he or she also suffers from anxiety, as though anxiety is a mitigating factor the columnist should consider. I do not recall Dear Abby or Ann Landers dealing with anxious letter writers years ago. Vox explains that anxiety has become a catchall for every unpleasant emotion.
When you run a therapy practice called the Center for Anxiety, as David H. Rosmarin does, you encounter a breadth of anxiety-related experiences. Sometimes, after talking with new patients, Rosmarin will determine their distress may not be related — or solely related — to anxiety at all.Because anxiety intersects with so many other aspects of mental health, like depression and substance abuse, Rosmarin says, many people are quick to attribute their emotional pain to anxiety alone. They may even mistake anxiety for something else entirely. He’s told patients they’re not anxious at all, but stressed.
Especially since Covid more Americans report feeling stressed, anxious, or depressed. People are watching YouTube videos, TikTok videos and using mental health apps more than ever to deal with mental health issues. Americans are also turning to therapists and mental health counselors to talk about their feelings.
Nearly a quarter of adults visited a psychologist, therapist, psychiatrist, or other mental health professional in 2022, compared to 13 percent who did so in 2004, according to a Gallup poll. No longer stigmatized or discussed in secret, mental health terms — and mental health-adjacent terms — have trickled out of the therapy room and into casual conversation.
Past research has found lot of people who need to see a therapist do not, while a lot of people who seek therapy do not have a mental health condition.
Normalization of mental health is undoubtedly positive: More people can feel empowered to seek care and to openly discuss their experiences. However, increased awareness has resulted in more people confusing “milder forms of distress as mental health problems,” according to one academic paper.
Everyone gets anxious. People get anxious about different things, such as before a first date or when giving presentations at work. Back when I traveled for work, I would feel both anxious and excited at the same time when giving presentations. That is normal. When is anxiety not normal?
A sign of an anxiety disorder is when anxiety interferes with your daily life. If the thought of going to a social event elicits physical symptoms like vomiting and/or persistent worried thoughts of how others will perceive you, you may have social anxiety, Marks says. Avoiding people, missing work or school, a baseline level of fear (that may not be logical), and inability to relax are some of the signs of generalized anxiety disorder. “One of the characteristics of generalized anxiety,” she says, “is that you can worry about anything. You can worry about world peace.” Someone with debilitating anxiety might want to work with a therapist to better cope.
Anxiety and stress are not the same. There is a risk of labeling every negative emotion as anxiety. We create pathologies for normal feelings and refuse to face them.
People may mistake anxiety for stress. Stress is when you have too many demands and not enough resources, like time or money to outsource some responsibilities, Rosmarin says. “Anxiety often happens in the context of an abundance of resources,”Labeling yourself as an anxious person, even if you do have a diagnosis, can make it more difficult to overcome your emotions. If anxiety is so baked into how you see yourself, you could use it as a crutch or an excuse to avoid social situations, new experiences, or other potentially enriching events.Avoidance is generally the wrong way to address anxiety, Haslam says. Believing you have social anxiety, for example, may lead you to isolate, which only entrenches the anxiety. Avoidance may offer temporary relief, but doesn’t offer a long-term solution.
Is anxiety worse than in years past? That is hard to say with any evidence. The reality is that more people are confusing stress for anxiety, which makes the solution more difficult to identify.