Anxiety Disorders And PTSD

Anxiety and anxiety disorders and PTSD affect approximately one in every five New Zealanders at some point in their lives. At any given time, 15% of the population will be affected.

The one thing we know for sure is suffering from anxiety and/or anxiety attacks is no fun way to live. Personally, I have never had a full-blown anxiety attack as such, but I have most definitely lived with persistent anxiety all of my life, So I definitely can empathise massively with anyone that’s struggling to manage and resolve anxiety and anxiety attacks.

The thing about anxiety, anxiety disorders, and anxiety attacks that we can all probably agree on is that it would be great if we could find a way of effectively treating and managing them. And while this is the ultimate goal, it’s pretty likely that in order to achieve effective resolution of anxiety disorders for ourselves and others, we first need to try and understand them a bit better.

Are Anxiety Disorders a Form of PTSD? 

When it comes to fully unpacking the true underlying causes of anxiety, anxiety disorders, and anxiety attacks, I am pretty sure it’s complicated, and there probably isn’t one single satisfactory answer. The nature versus nurture debate will rage on for generations to come. We know that conditioning and environment play key roles in almost any mental health issue, and we also now know genetics play a part in every disease and every condition known to man and woman. Even the state of our gut bacteria is now in the lineup of suspects regarding chronic mood disorders like chronic anxiety. Then there is the emerging discipline of epigenetics… But that’s a story for another day. The point is that anxiety is complicated.

A perspective I would like to offer is that, to a large extent, we are built to be healthy, we are built to be happy, and we are built to thrive. And that, much like our immediate mammalian relatives, if we are nurtured in a healthy way, then we tend to come out differently compared to when we face a great deal of adversity, especially at an early age. 

A mere glance at how much more open, charming, giggly and upright the average human baby is, compared with the average human teenager, may be a glimpse of how our ‘more natural’ and unconditioned state is essentially pretty awesome and more fearless. Could it be that, to a large extent, the anxious, depressed teenager is so often different from the bubbly baby because of the stress and adversity that the teenager has been conditioned to deal with?

From one perspective, it is possible that when we see the bubbly, open, happy-go-lucky baby, we are seeing a human being in its natural state. And that when we see humans with anxiety disorders etc, we are seeing the impact of adverse life events

So if it turns out that anxiety, anxiety disorders and anxiety attacks are caused by a build-up of stressors to the nervous system, perhaps the anxiety spectrum is a form of low-grade PTSD on some level. A response to stress and trauma, if you will.

The term PTSD traditionally refers to the extreme physical and mental symptoms suffered by those who have had major traumatic life events like assaults, significant injuries, etc. A major hallmark of PTSD tends to be chronic anxiety.

A perspective I would like to offer is that, to a large extent, we are built to be healthy, we are built to be happy, and we are built to thrive. And that, much like our immediate mammalian relatives, if we are nurtured in a healthy way, then we tend to come out differently compared to when we face a great deal of adversity, especially at an early age. 

A mere glance at how much more open, charming, giggly and upright the average human baby is, compared with the average human teenager, may be a glimpse of how our ‘more natural’ and unconditioned state is essentially pretty awesome and more fearless. Could it be that, to a large extent, the anxious, depressed teenager is so often different from the bubbly baby because of the stress and adversity that the teenager has been conditioned to deal with?

From one perspective, it is possible that when we see the bubbly, open, happy-go-lucky baby, we are seeing a human being in its natural state. And that when we see humans with anxiety disorders etc, we are seeing the impact of adverse life events

So if it turns out that anxiety, anxiety attacks,  anxiety disorders and PTSD are caused by a build-up of stressors to the nervous system, perhaps the anxiety spectrum is a form of low-grade PTSD on some level. A response to stress and trauma, if you will.

The term PTSD traditionally refers to the extreme physical and mental symptoms suffered by those who have had major traumatic life events like assaults, significant injuries, etc. A major hallmark of PTSD tends to be chronic anxiety. 

Psychologists have a specific set of criteria to diagnose PTSD, which is important. But is it possible that PTSD is just a very extreme version of something much more common, like anxiety disorder? And is it also possible that they both have their roots in stressful and traumatic events? I don’t know the answers, but I do feel that it’s worth questioning.

How much of life is truly binary versus parts of the spectrum? What I mean by this is that if life’s major traumatic events can cause full-blown PTSD, presumably, smaller life events could create low-grade forms of PTSD. Could anxiety disorders sit somewhere in this realm? As a sufferer of anxiety, it can be pretty hard to tell where your anxiety comes from, and no doubt many of us simply conclude that ‘it’s just who I am.

Suppose you have chronic anxiety but find it hard to believe it could be a subtle form of PTSD simply because you can’t recall anything heavy going down. In that case, that could be confirmation that this theory at least doesn’t apply to you personally. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that many of us are such sensitive souls that it doesn’t take a considerable amount to traumatise us. So if you are a sensitive being, there may have been trauma that occurred without you even realising that it qualified as trauma. Then there is also the tendency we have to suppress stressful memories. These combined factors at least allow for the possibility that low-grade trauma can leave its mark in the form of anxiety without our realising it.

Psychologists have a specific set of criteria to diagnose PTSD, which is important. But is it possible that PTSD is just a very extreme version of something much more common, like anxiety disorder? And is it also possible that they both have their roots in stressful and traumatic events? I don’t know the answers, but I do feel that it’s worth questioning.

How much of life is truly binary versus parts of the spectrum? What I mean by this is that if life’s major traumatic events can cause full-blown PTSD, presumably, smaller life events could create low-grade forms of PTSD. Could anxiety disorders sit somewhere in this realm? As a sufferer of anxiety, it can be pretty hard to tell where your anxiety comes from, and no doubt many of us simply conclude that ‘it’s just who I am.

Suppose you have chronic anxiety but find it hard to believe it could be a subtle form of PTSD simply because you can’t recall anything heavy going down. In that case, that could be confirmation that this theory at least doesn’t apply to you personally. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that many of us are such sensitive souls that it doesn’t take a considerable amount to traumatise us. So if you are a sensitive being, there may have been trauma that occurred without you even realising that it qualified as trauma. Then there is also the tendency we have to suppress stressful memories. These combined factors at least allow for the possibility that low-grade trauma can leave its mark in the form of anxiety without our realising it.

Conclusion

If you ask mainstream psychology what percentage of people suffer from addiction, they will share numbers based on certain diagnostic criteria. These diagnostic criteria distinguish between ‘the addicts’ and the rest of us. But how many of us can honestly say we aren’t addicted to something? Food, coffee, mobile phones, red wine etc… Sure, the majority of us live somewhere on the addiction spectrum. Maybe the same truth applies to PTSD and trauma, and there are more of us than we realise carrying some kind of low-grade PTSD which has been labelled ‘anxiety’.

If this were true from my perspective, it would actually be good news if all of this were the case. This is because there are many effective ways to resolve trauma  (and anxiety disorders and PTSD)that has become stuck in our body/mind system. Whereas if some of us are simply born anxious, the outlook may not be quite as rosy.

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