Some of the common reasons that people come to see me for counseling are fear and anxiety.
You may hear the word “fear” and think of moments of terror and alarm. You may hear the word “anxiety” and think of moments of worry or fretting. No one wants to live in the clutches of fear and anxiety, but both of these feelings play a significant role in your life.
Fear arises when you perceive a threat from the world around you to you or the important people in your life. Fear puts you on alert, and it will do several things to get your body ready to take care of yourself. You may feel a rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, and shortness of breath. Your body is activated to fight or flee the threat you are experiencing. Fear can heighten awareness so that you can stay focused on the danger in front of you.
While fear is focused on a present threat, anxiety focuses on the future. You are fearful of something that is happening right in front of you; you are anxious about things that may happen. Some of the bodily responses that are part of fear also happen with anxiety. They may not be as intense, but they can last a lot longer, because anxiety is driven by what your mind is telling you instead of real sources of threat.
Experiencing fear and anxiety can be healthy.
Both of these feelings serve the purpose of alerting you to danger and keeping you alive. When you are facing a real danger, fear mobilizes all the resources you need to take defensive action. In fact, many of these resources are so automatic that you don’t really have to learn them. When someone who is hidden jumps out in front of you, you will jump; you may scream and feel your heart pounding. These things just happen. But you can also learn to activate the fear response, for example, when someone yells that the building is on fire.
Anxiety can also be useful. If you know something meaningful and important is happening in the future, it makes sense that you would worry about how it will go. You may do some planning and take some steps to make sure it goes well. I live in Oklahoma, and the season of spring is also tornado season. When the meteorologists start predicting the possibility of storms for days ahead, your anxiety may lead you to change family plans or make sure the safe space in your house is ready.
Hopefully, you can see that fear and anxiety have a place in your life.
They have helped you in the past and will most likely help you in the future. So what makes the difference between this normal fear and anxiety, and the kind of fear and anxiety that leads you to seek out counseling? It may feel like the anxiety and fear are there all the time. These feelings become more hurtful than helpful. The list of things that your mind gets you to worry about goes on and on; there is always one more thing to worry about or one more thing about this situation to worry about.
When the anxiety and worry begin to interfere with you living the life you want to live, you may be struggling with an anxiety disorder. There are several types of anxiety disorders: panic, simple phobia, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or generalized anxiety. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing more information about each of these. My goal is not to give you the information you need to diagnose yourself. Labeling yourself with a diagnosis will not help you live a meaningful life. The goal is to help you understand why a particular kind of anxiety can become disruptive and debilitating.
If you would like more information about how I work with people who struggle with anxiety and fear, you can visit my anxiety treatment specialty page.