People tend to associate an anxiety disorder with everything from a generalized sort of anxiety to very specific phobias, like stage fright or a fear of public speaking. And they might dismiss these problems as though they really are nothing more than severe shyness or a lack of self confidence. When they do recognize genuine anxiety disorders, they think more of something like an obsessive compulsive disorder or agoraphobia. But there are other conditions that people either don’t think much about or might not recognize as an anxiety disorder.
Eating disorders may be distantly recognized by most people as having some relation to anxiety, but they are probably more associated in people’s minds with things like peer pressure or obsessive compulsive behavior. But conditions like anorexia, bulimia or binge eating, while they are all associated with eating and a preoccupation with body weight or shape, can sometimes stem from traumatic experiences like child abuse or anxieties produced by family or peer pressure. Disorders that relate to eating behaviors are indeed anxiety disorders. Even if there are also some physical causes, the underlying anxieties are often the trigger for the conditions.
Of the many sorts of anxiety disorders, a phobia about going to school can be among the hardest to diagnose. In fact, some people would have a hard time believing that there is such a phobia, interpreting a child’s fear as shyness or lack of self-confidence. And because the most prominent symptoms of this social phobia are physical, such as vomiting, lethargy or physical pain, physical causes are usually sought first. But it’s important to recognize this very real anxiety disorder and treat it, or the child could wind up suffering from other mental conditions for years to come.
There is another disorder consisting almost entirely of panicked anxiety attacks, but it is sometimes not recognized, if doctors think the attacks are merely symptoms of one of the other anxiety disorders. This illustrates the difficulty with some of these less straightforward conditions. They are either hard to diagnose, like panic disorders and school phobias, or the root cause is difficult to pinpoint, such as with an eating disorder. The world of the anxiety disorder can sometimes be very murky, making diagnosis and treatment a challenge.
Anxiety disorders are a little more complicated than many people might think. These conditions don’t just encompass things like the garden variety fear of social situations. The more obscure or tricky disorders give doctors a run for their money, as they try to figure out exactly what’s wrong.
There are a number of different approaches when it comes to anxiety disorder cures, with medication and counseling being two of the most common. Click here if you are one of the millions of Americans who need to learn more about stress and anxiety management.
