While anxiety is intended to be protective and helpful to human beings, it seems that much more often people are taught, either by learning or through biology, that there are more negative than positive anxiety effects. This article will briefly explore how these negative anxiety effects seem to be formed, despite the fact that anxiety is intended to be helpful to people.
The first way in which negative anxiety effects seem to be formed is through biology. Many people cannot recall a single instance in life where they felt free of anxiety; anxiety, it seems, is a part of who they are and how they act, and unfortunately, some people are wired with hypersensitive anxiety responses that require extensive work to tone down so that a minimum of unnecessary anxiety is produced. At least a handful of social anxiety sufferers exist who feel as though they were socially anxious and shy from day one, and this probably means that they have some sort of biological predisposition to anxiety, and this seems especially likely if parents and grandparents had histories of anxiety.
The next way in which negative anxiety effects seem to be formed is via experience. Many people are unsure whether or not they were biologically predisposed to anxiety, but they are sure that experience seemed to have something do with the formation of their anxiety disorder. Some can recall cold and unloving parents who were attempting to do their best, but simply were unable to handle the problems that plagued their lives, and often this mean that these anxiety sufferers were left alone, and possibly even emotionally abused. Without having someone to guide the way, the world became a very scary and anxiety-provoking place, and especially so if the primary caregivers were temperamental towards the anxiety sufferer. The anxiety effects on the lives of these people are particularly profound, although they are not irreversible.
The third way in which negative anxiety effects are formed are through repeated, or possibly singular traumatic experiences. It would be very reasonable to expect that people who were in the midst of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 would suffer from a much higher rate of negative anxiety effects such as post-traumatic stress disorder or agoraphobia, for example. Other traumatic life experiences that can lead to the formation of anxiety disorders include combat experience, the witnessing of a murder, or being a victim of rape or sexual abuse. It is very reasonable to expect that victims of such traumatic experiences suffer from higher rates of anxiety disorders.
Overall, while the tone of this article is somewhat somber, the important point to remember is the negative anxiety effects can be toned down to the point where they cause very minimal interference in a person’s life. Excessive anxiety is really never the anxiety-sufferer’s fault; people form anxiety disorders either because of biology or as a very natural reaction to the stress of living in the world. The important point to remember, as noted before, is that anyone who takes the time can and will recover from anxiety; the recovery may not happen as quickly as one would like it to, but can and happen it will if a person continues to work away it! Good luck to everyone and I sincerely wish that everyone recovers from the difficulties that anxiety brings!
