Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized anxiety causes people to suffer with unrealistic or excessive anxiety and worry about life circumstances. For example, they may feel panicky about financial matters even though they have a good bank balance and have paid their debts. Or they may be preoccupied constantly about a husband or child who is safe at work or school.

People with this disorder may have stretches of time when they're not consumed by these worries, but they are anxious most of the time. Patients with this disorder often feel "shaky," reporting that they feel "keyed up" or "on edge" and that they sometimes "go blank" because of the tension that they feel. They often suffer also with depression.

It is a relatively common anxiety problem, affecting 3-4% of the population, and turns daily life into a state of worry, anxiety, and fear.

Excessive thinking and dwelling on the "what ifs" characterizes this anxiety disorder. As a result, the person feels there’s no way out of the vicious cycle of anxiety and worry, and then becomes depressed about life and the state of anxiety they find themselves in.

Generalized anxiety usually does not cause people to avoid situations, and there isn’t an element of a "panic attack" involved in the prognosis, either.

It’s the thinking, thinking, thinking, pondering, dwelling, ruminating, ruminating, and inability to shut the mind off that so incapacitates the person. At other times, thoughts seem almost non-existent because the anxious feelings are so dominant.

Feelings of worry, dread, lack of energy, and a loss of interest in life are common. Many times there is no "trigger" or "cause" for these feelings and the person realizes these feelings are irrational. Nevertheless, the feelings are very real. At this point, there is no "energy" or "zest" in life and no desire to want to do much.