Living with High-Functioning Anxiety
High-functioning anxiety looks like achievement, perfectionism, busyness.
This may sound like a good thing, but these habits turn into nervous habits: biting your nails, tapping your foot, running your hands through your hair, pacing a room until you reach your absolute limit, an attack.
High functioning anxiety feels like nails on a chalkboard with the screeching sounds of your mind screaming inside. A punch to the gut when you answer a question and are terrified of being judged. In any split second your emotions go from content to completely terrified by the world around you.
Although while you are constantly at war with yourself on the inside you seem completely calm on the outside. Like a ninja that sneaks through the night, you would never suspect anything.
“It’s like a tick in the back of your head that is constantly picking away at you” says Nicole Osborn, a student at California State University Fullerton.
“Sometimes I don’t notice it and other times it is very apparent. When I do notice it a physical pain comes over my body. Like your limb falling asleep and that tingling sensation not able to go away as if your numb all over” says Osborn. “You just want to run away and let go but until you finish the task that set you off and its perfect, there is no hiding from it.”
College students are faced with many deadlines that lead to high stress and lack of sleep. All of this mixed in with the desire to succeed can come down on someone in the form of anxiety and some more than others.
According to Dr. Wayne Lenz a Licensed Therapist, anxiety disorders are highly common amongst college students.
“Time constraints and high-stress situations and the need to be perfect triggers positive stress. However, how students cope with the stress is the problem which in turn leads to negative stress.”
Common symptoms of anxiety disorder include: Persistent worrying; inability to set aside or let go of a worry; inability to relax; restlessness; feeling on edge, according to Mayoclinic.org. Some physical signs are: Fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, trembling, trouble sleeping, nausea and headaches.”
Not only does anxiety disorder effect you mentally but also physically. This is a common disorder amongst many people. Many fail to get proper help and go about their lives living with this monster inside of them, clawing to get out and control their lives.
“High stress from work, being hungover, sleep deprived or too much going on in the environment such as loud noises, confusion or too many people talking, sets me off and I am in an all out battle with myself and my anxiety” says Michael Beeman, Certified Financial Planner at Northwestern Mutual.
Everyone can be affected by anxiety but how one copes with it can truly save or calm the situation at hand. “Best coping situation I have learned over the past 10 years of this disorder it so remove myself from the situation that is causing me stress” says Beeman. “I know in the end I will be ok, I just need to remind myself to breathe.”
There are two main treatments for an anxiety disorder: psychotherapy and medications. “Some may benefit from a combination of the two. It takes trial and error and many sessions with me to discover which treatment works best for my patients” says Lenz.
“The best thing students can do when they start to feel a sense of anxiety or mental stress is to ease the situation and monitor how they’re feeling in these high-stress environments. Once they describe to me how their mind and body works, I am able to assess them and make my suggestions on ways to help.”
“The best thing to remember in a time of doubt or worry” says Lenz, “Is you are not alone and you are going to be ok.”
