Information on other anxiety conditions /related disorders / phobias
Other anxiety conditions are covered here.
- Depersonalisation Disorder (DD)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Anticipatory Anxiety
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Depersonalisation Disorder
Depersonalisation is the experience of feeling unreal, detached, and often, unable to feel emotion. It is a phenomenon characterised by a disruption in self-awareness and emotional numbness. Many people experience depersonalisation during a panic attack and this is often characterised as the peak level of anxiety.
Seasonal Affective Disorder
This condition is also known as the “Winter Blues” because those who suffer with it feel down, depressed, experience loss of energy, changes in appetite/sleep patterns during the winter months. The condition is believed to be due to the lower light levels that are around during winter.
How we can help
Anxiety UK is a user-led charity with more than forty years experience in supporting those living with anxiety. By becoming a member of Anxiety UK, you will have access to a range of benefits, including:
- Access to reduced cost therapy within two weeks of submitting your therapy request
- Access to our helpline (available Monday-Friday, 9:30 am – 5:30 pm) staffed by volunteers with personal experience of anxiety
- Receipt of four issues of Anxious Times, our quarterly members” magazine
- Access to the members only section of our website, featuring regular support surgeries facilitated by anxiety experts
- Access to specialist helplines, including the psychiatric pharmacy helpline and the psychology information helpline
And many, many other benefits that will help you manage your anxiety long term. To become a member of Anxiety UK click here or ring 08444 775 774 today.
Want to know more
The Anxiety UK site has information on a range of resources to provide more detailed information and help.
Anxiety UK Publications
- Anxiety UK publishes a fact sheet and audio-tapes dealing with some of the above conditions. These are available from the Anxiety UK online shop
|
Anxiety UK relies on donations to keep its services running. If you found this information useful please make a donation – no amount is too small.
|
 |
Personal experience
Do you suffer from the above conditions and want to share your experience with other people? Post your personal experience in the comments box below where it will be sent to our moderator for approval. Many people find this part of the site very useful when trying to understand their disorder so your comments really do make a difference. Please note, all comments submitted to the Anxiety UK website may be used by Anxiety UK for (but not limited to) publicity and promotional material.
If you would like to make contact with others who are living with similar experiences, you can do so via the Anxiety UK Pen-Pals scheme which is a service available to all Anxiety UK members (in both electronic and hard copy format).
I have suffered on and off noticably for the past 10 years. But looking back at my childhood I would say I have always been a worrier and over thinker. Some months or days are more apparent. It can be around lots of diffferent things. I had a fear of sharpe knifes and still do form time to time. I had my first servere panic back in 2003. At the time had peeled an apple and hte knife was on the side. I felt I was going made out of control of my body and mind. With the knife in the room it has now left me uneasy around them for the fear of hurting someone ( I believe this is because of the panic at the time and the intensity). I know deep down that I would never do anything to myself or loved ones or anyone for that matter, but when things like this happen out of no where it is scary. Life has not been easy from a young age losing my mother to suicide when i was 9. This has not helped in worrying I will do the same. My brother also has suffered similar to my mothers depression from the age of 16 he is older than me by 4years. My sister and I do have similar thought patterns with worry and anxitey. She is 2 years older than me. At the moment I have had to go back on the citalpram had a very nasty attack two weeks ago which has left me at my worst. It has been a stressful couple of years and I had come of ctalopram in february. I found many situations difficult but because my husband and wanted a family I knew I needed to come off. I have had many irrational thoughts over the years about different things and must admit the older i get the harder it seems to get. Although I do feel i coupe a little better I find i push myself and end up back at rock bottom. My hardest fear at the moment is my husband I love him so much but at the moment I feel I have two voices in my head one telling me you don’t love him and the other saying a do. This has been the hardest thought. We have been together for 10 years . In away I want to get rid of the anxiety and think these thoughts are a solution but I know deep down it would break my heart to end our relationship. I am so confussed and wish i coukd make sense of it all. I want to feel normal ( I know what is normal) Deep down I know if I did leave him I would find the same issues with someone else. But the negative thoughts are bring so much guilt and i find the hot flush and panic comes on its never happened so frequently. I just want to feel balanced again. I feel numb at times. The thing I am holding on to is to remember that like any normal relationship there is good and bad times believe me he is not perfect and can do things to upset me and if I didn’t care I would have left him by now . Love is strange!. I just think my anxiety is so high i can’t rationlise what everyday people think. I tend to hold on to the thought question and analysis it so much. But when i do fill calm I can do the same.
I have the exactly same problem with aniexty as you Lisa, I have started a new relationship and due to my past I am finding it hard – the 2 self help things that I have found helpful to remember are: that its not him, not the relationship, but the irrational side of you that are causing these thoughts. Also I carry a note with me for time of stress that reads “just because I feel it, does not mean it is true”. I also have a psychotherapist, which I find I couldnt have made much progress without her help.
Caroline
Hi Lisa,
I too know exactly how you feel. I struggle with those thoughts too. I have a lovely girlfriend but sometimes I get so anxious about being in the relationship that I can’t feel any love towards her and only feel fear. It’s horrible having this inner dialogue trying to battle negative thoughts and feelings about someone who I’m desperate to love.
Caroline’s advice is good, it’s a good idea to recognise that it’s the anxiety that’s the problem that’s been a big step for me. What’s hard though is that those thoughts can be so persistent and so negative it’s hard not to believe something is wrong.
My anxiety reached a peak in December 2010 when I nearly had a panic attack at work. I hid in the toilets and cried. Even when crying I was examining my thoughts hoping for something tangible to cling to that would settle my worry about the relationship. Hoping I might feel that love for her again. It was so hard, I had patients to see and just had to dry my eyes and go back to work. That night I cried for hours and the feelings of love came tumbling out. I walked around the flat looking at her photos, her fluffy socks and her clothes and just wanted to gather them all close to me. I realised the love was just hidden under all that fear.
Maybe that’s true for you too, afterall if you didn’t care the negative thoughts wouldn’t be so troubling. I’ve made a great deal of progress since then. I’ve found meditation and Mindfulness hugely helpful. I’ve learned to spot the signs of anxiety and anxious thinking; when everything seems gloomy, when good things seem irrelevant, when your chest is tight, when negative thoughts are circling round and you ruminate thinking it over and over then you’re under the influence of anxiety. For me relaxation helps me settle that a little.
Now things are better I’ve noticed that when I’m not anxious I love my girlfriend and I even think about proposing! Despite that when the anxiety flares I feel like everything is broken again, least now I know that’s just anxiety.
Hope what I’ve written is some help. Good luck.
Tom
Hi there,
I am a 34-year-old male from the Midlands. I know this sounds rather bizarre but I have a long-standing anxiety which stems from childhood regarding a certain type of ceramic wall tile, primarily involving its visual image/pattern. This particular type was most popular in the ’70s and into the early ’80s, and commonplace in many bathrooms, kitchens, etc, well into the early ’90s. The manufacturer of tile concerned was ‘H.R. Johnson’, the brand was ‘Cristal’ and the product range was ‘Texture Vein’. The pattern engraved on the front face is believed by some people to resemble a ‘bird’ of some kind, by others it is believed to be a simple ‘abstract’ pattern, which my family refer to as ‘cracked ice’. The background is white with the pattern engraved in a single colour (brown, pink, yellow, blue, aqua, and possibly more).
The origin of my anxiety surrounding these tiles probably stems from the age of 2 3/4 or 3 years old as we had those tiles in the bathroom of the house we lived in at the time (the brown version) and I thought I could see images within the pattern that frightened me whilst I was sitting in the bath. The anxiety did not fully manifest itself until I was about 5 years old and I used to really dread the thought of having a bath with all those tiles surrounding me. I felt unable to explain my fears to my parents at the time, but had the confidence to by the time of my early adulthood, though we no longer have those tiles in the house that me and my parents live in now.
Earlier this year I attended an event at a social club in the Birmingham area with my brother and those very tiles happened to be plastered all over the walls in the toilets there! Although I was still managed to use the toilets and do my business properly and successfully I felt a real sense of discomfort whilst inside them! I felt short of breath, my heart started to race a little and I felt a bit dizzy. I think the shinyness of the ceramic surfaces also affects me in view of my reactions mentioned above.
I don’t recall any apparent bad experiences from childhood specifically associated with bathing (e.g. fear of water, drowning, etc) just my fear of those tiles surrounding our bath back then. It would indeed be interesting to learn if other people have had (or still have) similar fears and anxieties.
Thank you, R.C.
I’ve just come across this website and was reading through the comments and so glad I did, thank you so much much for sharing your experiences as I now feel less isolated and it is such a relief that other people are having the same thoughts. I have been struggling on and off with Anxiety since I was young but it has really come out over the last couple of years,when I was in university and since I started working. I finally went to the GP about it after spending so much time off work due to illness which I know was caused by my worrying.
I feel like I over analyse everything I do then constantly worry about it, I then feel like I have another voice in my head that makes things up and my thoughts spiral out of control. This really hurts as I know that these thoughts are not real and not what I beleive in. I just want to be back to myself.
Thank you all so much I feel like finding this website and reading your stories has been a big step in helping me control my anxiety.
Helen (23)