Anxiety: The Physical Symptoms of a Mental Illness

Chances are, you have experienced anxiety in some form. Whether it was a big test, a hard conversation with a friend, or a problem at work, you know what it is like to be nervous or “anxious.” Having generalized anxiety is more complicated than that and persists for more than just a day or two. Not everyone experiences it the same way, so I will tell you about my experience. My anxiety is expressed through fear, intense worry, anger, outbursts of rage, and a multitude of physical symptoms to go along with it. Since I have PTSD, I can also be triggered into panic attacks, which I am still learning to handle. This is when the physical symptoms become most intense for me. Hopefully telling you about my experience with anxiety will help you to better understand what is happening in your body, or help you to understand others like me if you have never experienced anything like this.

Have you ever had butterflies in your stomach? If so, you have experienced a physical symptom of nervousness. When I have an anxiety attack, I experience much more severe physical symptoms. The “fight or flight” response is the one reason for these physical symptoms. Your “fight or flight” response is triggered when your brain perceives that you are threatened in some way. These threats can be as big as someone robbing you at gunpoint, and as small as having a job interview. Whether big or small, physical or psychological, our body reacts to being in danger. Having anxiety means that my “fight or flight” response can be triggered by things that most other people would not be bothered by.

One of the biggest signs that my anxiety is increasing is if I start to shorten my breath. In extreme cases, I can start to hyperventilate; this is most likely if I am crying. My muscles hold tension and the more anxious I become, the more my muscles start to tense up. There are knots in my neck that go from being horribly tight, to slightly less tight. It is seemingly impossible to release all of the tension from my body because of how anxious and stressed out I am on a consistent basis. If I become overwhelmed, even if it is just typical work/life/home stuff, there is a chance that I will either break down in tears or become so angry that I will snap at anyone who is within range. My heart starts to race, my body temperature rises and I start to sweat.

A few of the most disruptive symptoms to my life are insomnia and acid reflux. When my mind starts to race, there is a very small chance that I will be able to sleep until I can calm my mind. The worst is when I start to get anxious thoughts around 11 PM. There have been times that I have stayed up until 3:00, 4:00, or 5:00 AM because there was something I absolutely needed to get done before I went to bed. Just last week I stayed up until 1:30 AM doing extra work because I was worried that I was not putting enough effort into building my business. When this happens, the whole next day is started off on a bad foot because I am not well rested.

Being anxious can actually trigger an acid reflux flare up for me; there have been times that I have woken up from my already precious and limited sleep to throw up. When I was in college, I actually lost 30 pounds in one semester because of how bad my acid reflux became from stress. I could barely eat because of how anxious I was! I had just recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I was having a difficult time handling the diagnosis. I thought I looked HOT after losing all that weight! My mom told me I looked like there was something wrong with me (which there was).

There is nothing rational about these reactions. Often times, I can recognize I am overreacting (especially since I have been doing so much self discovery over the past two years), but my mind just goes wild and races with irrational thoughts. I have spent the past five and a half years learning to help control my anxiety and better understand how my body is affected by it. I have been dealing with chronic pain since I was 10 years old and I believe that my mental health has played a large role in causing it. The more I learn about anxiety, depression, PTSD, and chronic pain, I am convinced that I will be able to rid myself of my chronic pain one day. If I am able to properly process through past traumas and can continue to improve my knowledge and consistency on managing anxiety in the present moment, I believe that one day I will be able to say I am pain free.

Next week I will talk about ways to control your anxiety through yoga, exercise, and more! I would LOVE to share some of the ways I have began to control my anxiety and mental health over the past few years. At one point, my life was being constantly interrupted by my anxiety. I felt like I was unable to make forward progress in life because I was constantly anxious or depressed. No one should have to live like this! Check out next week’s blog to get an inside look at how I am conquering my mental health!