Intro to Psychology Essay

I. Describe: Anxiety is something I have been dealing with since I was in my childhood. I never fully understood anxiety until it started getting worse as I got into my adolescent stage. I had talked to my mom and grandma about it a lot of times to make sure I was okay. I have been through several both anxiety and panic attacks. I have been one to worry about everything. Pathological anxiety and fear was very random for me. I never understood what was going on. Growing up whenever I would learn something new an example is, my aunt had a tumor in her armpit and it started as a lump. I one time had a small bump and instantly worried myself that it was a tumor to. Another example is whenever I go to busy places like a restaurant or the mall I start to get a very nervous feeling and start to panic. I used to get real bad panic attacks to different places that whenever I would be on my way there I would freak myself out so much I would throw up. A third example that I didn’t realize was anxiety until I got older was I used to be very nervous about going to middle school. Like I said earlier I worry a lot so I would start to worry about the silliest things like people making fun of me for something I would do or say. Before I would go to school I would start getting a real bad stomachache and sometimes I would just go home and I suddenly felt better. Describing anxiety is very difficult. It took many years until I realized I was actually going through it. II. Explain: My anxiety is very continuum. I can be fine at some places, but other times I can go into a panic attack randomly. I think a lot of this started whenever I was talking to my mom and grandma they were telling me how they both have it, my sisters, my brother, and also my dad has it. So, it’s all in my family. I believe that everyone has a small part of anxiety in them some is just worse than others. I used to have a very high anxiety before I would g o on a date. I would be scared to death and have panic attacks sometimes I wouldn’t even be able to go on a date because I would freak myself out so bad. My mom was really worried about me she thought I had a generalized anxiety disorder so I went to the doctors to get medicine. My dad has anxiety and doesn’t like to be in large crowds or he will start to panic, but he will never admit that to me. He is a very strong-headed person and doesn’t believe anxiety exists. Mine actually just gets bad in certain restaurants, around certain people, and sometimes it comes out of nowhere. The other day at work there was no one in there I just started worrying about small things and next thing I knew I was having a small panic attack. My cognitive bias was just overreacting about small things. The worst thing to ever go through is an anxiety attack. You start to have a heightened physiological arousal, high-strung temperament, and neurochemical imbalance. I literally thought I was dying whenever I was going through one. III. Predict: I thought I was going to go through something more serious then just anxiety if I didn’t do a nything about it. I thought I was going to have depression because I wouldn’t go out and do things because my anxiety would take a toll on me. I thought something even more serious as PTSD. I would stress myself out thinking I was so different and never going to be a normal girl that could go on dates or just go somewhere with friends. The worst part was this all started getting severe in my senior year of high school. So my friends are all going out having fun and I’m just freaking myself out. I worked on a problem-focus coping and realizing what was wrong with me and what I needed to do to not let this bring me down during my senior year. I was adapting to these new changes in my life and starting to realize anxiety is something I have to deal with for the rest of my life. IV Change: I tried to just avoid it all together. I would look up ways on the Internet to avoid getting panic attacks or how to calm my anxiety, but nothing worked. My grandma always told me whenever she would have e ither a panic attack or anxiety attack that she would just remind herself to calm down and tell her self that she is okay. I honestly thought I was the only one in this world that had anxiety and was afraid of everything. I never told anyone except my close friends and family about it cause I didn’t know how other people would take it. When going to restaurants I would counter condition everything and tell myself I was okay and over time anxiety wasn’t as bad. I did a lot of cognitive restructuring as well. I would think of different things I could do to start over coming this anxiety. I started talking to other people about it and hearing that other people have anxiety and deal with the same things I do made me feel like I wasn’t the only one going through it. Dealing with this I knew that systematic desensitization was out of the question. I knew that I didn’t need help from someone hired to help me. I knew I could get through this. I started to just ignore it. Oddly, my anxiety actually went away for a while when I started dating my boyfriend. My mom had told him about my anxiety before we went on our first date and with him knowing and didn’t judge me I felt so much more comfortable. When we went out he did everything he could to make me feel comfortable and I thought it was the sweetest thing. Now that we have been together for a while I don’t get anxiety or panic attacks as frequent as I used to. I still have them sometimes and I just talk myself out of them, or I will talk to him and they will go away cause my mind is distracted. I am starting to completely overcome them although I know deep down I am always going to worry about thing and have a slight sense of anxiety within me. I have a different attitude about things and try not to let my anxiety get the best of me when I go places.