Would NHS.uk make you more anxious?
Monday; too many emails, project deadline Friday, working late. Come home feeling tired, anxious and unsettled.
Tuesday; working late again. Tomorrow, dentist, extraction. Hate the dentist. Get home with a headache, don’t feel hungry.
Wednesday; leave work early, dentist. On way home check messages; not heard from friend in California. Get home in pain, fed up, anxious about friend.
Thursday; working late again, talk of Brexit and redundancies. Feel fed up, tired and anxious; butterflies in stomach, headache worse.
Friday; meet project deadline, not sure good enough. Get home exhausted, feelings sick, headache, still no appetite etc. Have first date with someone met online; feel very anxious, a bit lightheaded; heart is beating fast, hands sweaty; not sure about date; remember last break up.
Decide to search the Internet. Look at NHS.uk; sectionon General Anxiety Disorder.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a long-term condition that causes you to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event.
You look through the list one by one.
How come a site like NHS.uk, which will be the first port of call for many, doesn’t mention this? How come it focuses only on how we feel when we are anxious, (i.e., what it regards as symptoms) and not on what we are doing? It is true that this myopic view is only a reflection of ideas in the wider culture, but that such a high-profile site has this bias has five profound effects.
It encourages us to focus on our feelings and to think of these as symptoms of a condition or illness.
It discourages us from asking questions about what we are thinking and how we are thinking about it.
As the causes are apparently either unknown or beyond our control, it increases our worries about how bad we might become or how long IT might last.
It increases our concern/fear that there might be something wrong with us.
It encourages us to feel we need help because there appears to be little we can do for ourselves.
If we see anxiety as an activity with a purpose, we can connect how we are thinking and the feelings of anxiety that arise as a result. Does NHS.uk not want you to know this? Or did they simply forget to mention it in their list of causes? If not, what was their reason? What effects does it have on individuals and on services and costs?
I am often lost in anxious thoughts tumbling like a washing machine on fast spin and can find no way out.
However eventually I do find a way of stopping the cycle and letting everything settle.