Anxiety For Dummies. Laura L. Smith

lived in an anxiety-inducing environment. Maybe it has nothing to do with their genes.

      Various researchers have studied siblings and twins who live together to verify that genes do play an important role as to how people experience and cope with anxiety. As predicted, identical twins were far more similar to each other in terms of anxiety than fraternal twins or other siblings. But even if you’re born with a genetic predisposition toward anxiety, other factors — such as environment, peers, and how your parents raised you — enter into the mix.

      It’s how I was raised!

      Blaming parents for almost anything that ails you is easy. Parents usually do the best they can. Raising children poses a formidable task. So in most cases, parents don’t deserve as much blame as they receive. However, they do hold responsibility for the way that you were brought up to the extent that it may have contributed to your woes.

      Three parenting styles appear to foster anxiety in children:

       Over-protectors: These parents shield their kids from every imaginable stress or harm. If their kids stumble, they swoop them up before they even hit the ground. When their kids get upset, they fix the problem. Not surprisingly, their kids fail to find out how to tolerate fear, anxiety, or frustration.

       Over-controllers: These parents micro-manage all their children’s activities. They direct every detail from how they should play to what they should wear to how they solve arithmetic problems. They discourage independence and fertilize dependency and anxiety.

       Inconsistent responders: The parents in this group provide their kids with erratic rules and limits. One day, they respond with understanding when their kids have trouble with their homework; the next day, they explode when their kids ask for help. These kids fail to discover the connection between their own efforts and a predictable outcome. Therefore, they feel that they have little control over what happens in life. It’s no wonder that they feel anxious.

      If you recognize your own parenting style in any of these descriptions and worry that your behavior may be affecting your child, flip to Chapter 20 to see how you can help your child overcome her anxiety.

      

During unpredictably tough times like a pandemic, parents may find themselves becoming overly controlling and/or overly protective. Parents also may seem inconsistent during a pandemic when the rules change because of changing health information. Those reactions are perfectly understandable. When life and death decisions are in play, an extra dose of caution is warranted. So, control and protect when it comes to critical threats to health. At the same time, try to find some decisions that your children can safely make on their own. It’s important to give them a sense of independence and autonomy during such stressful times. You can do so by giving choices over clothing, types of masks, movies to watch, or family games to play.

      It’s the world’s fault!

      The world today moves at a faster pace than ever, and the workweek has gradually inched upward rather than the other way around. Modern life is filled with both complexity and danger. Perhaps that’s why mental health workers see more people with anxiety-related problems than ever before. Four specific types of events can trigger a problem with anxiety, even in someone who has never suffered from it much before:

       Unanticipated threats: Predictability and stability counteract anxiety; uncertainty and chaos fuel it. For example, Calvin works long hours to make a decent living. Nevertheless, he lives from paycheck to paycheck with little left for savings. A freak slip on an icy patch of sidewalk disables him for six weeks, and he has insufficient sick leave to cover his absence. He now worries obsessively over his ability to pay bills. Even when he returns to work, he worries more than ever about the next financial booby trap that awaits him.

       Escalating demands: Having too much responsibility piled on your plate can make you anxious. Jake initially thinks that nothing is better than a promotion when his supervisor hands him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to direct the new high-risk research and development division at work. Jake never expected such a lofty position or the doubling of his salary this early in his career. Of course, new duties, expectations, and responsibilities come along for the ride. Jake now begins to fret and worry. What if he fails to meet the challenge? Anxiety starts taking over his life.

       Confidence killers: Unexpected criticisms and rejections can certainly trigger anxiety. Tricia is on top of the world. She has a good job and feels ecstatic about her upcoming wedding. However, she is stunned when her fiancé backs out of the proposal. Now, she worries incessantly that something is wrong with her; perhaps she’ll never have the life she envisioned for herself.

       Major threats: No one ever wants to experience a horrifying or even life-threatening experience. Unfortunately, these bitter pills do happen. Horrific accidents, acts of terrorism, pandemics, natural disasters, battlefield injuries, and violence have occurred for centuries, and we suspect they always will. When they do, severe problems with anxiety often emerge. Thus, survivors of tsunamis often have residual anxiety for years because of the totally unexpected nature of the event.

Finding Self-Acceptance

      Time and again, we see our worried, tense clients suffer from another needless source of pain. Their anxiety is bad enough, but they also pound on themselves because they have anxiety. Such self-abuse involves harsh, critical judgments. If you do this to yourself, we suggest that you try the following approach to self-acceptance.

      

Start by making a list of all the likely causes of your problems with anxiety. First, list any possible genetic contributions that you can think of in your relatives who may suffer from anxiety. Then, review how your parents may have either modeled anxiety or instilled it in you because of their over-controlling, over-protecting, or harsh, unpredictable parenting style. Then, review events in your world from the distant to recent past that were highly anxiety-arousing. Finally, after you list the likely culprits that led to your distress, ask yourself some questions like the ones that follow:

       Did I ask for my anxiety?

       Was there ever a time in my life that I actually wanted to feel anxious?

       Am I primarily to blame for my worries?

       What percentage of the blame can I realistically assign to myself as opposed to genes, parenting, and events, both old and new?

       If a couple of friends of mine had troubles with anxiety, what would I say to them?Would I think they were to blame?Would I think as ill of them as I do myself?

       Does thinking badly about myself help me to get over my anxiety?

       If I decided to stop pummeling myself, would I have more energy for tackling my problems?

      These questions can help you move toward self-acceptance and discover that having anxiety has nothing to do with your worth or value as a human being. Then, you just might lighten up on yourself a little. We recommend it highly. Mind you, people get down on themselves at times. But chronic, unrelenting self-abuse is another matter. If you find yourself completely unable to let go of self-abuse, you may want to seek professional help (see the related section at the end of this chapter). You can read more about self-acceptance in Chapter 8.

      ANXIETY AMONG THE RICH AND FAMOUS

      So many of our clients seem to think that they’re the only people in the world who struggle with anxiety. But we let them know that many millions of Americans suffer from anxiety. Perhaps you won’t feel quite so alone if you consider some of the famous people throughout history who’ve suffered from one or more of the various