Show of Hands

Completely disagree. Anxiety is a chemical stress response that activates the brains fight or flight system. Your body is literally dosing you with adrenaline, cortisol and other hormone chemicals. Its a normal and good response to have because it heightens awareness and alertness. Its only considered a disorder if your body is having a physical issue with these physical chemical systems. Can you train yourself out of the response? Yes, but not always. Sometimes there is a real physical issue going on that requires meds.

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Sounds like a saying from someone that hasn’t had a lot stress in their life.

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Nope. This is wrong and dangerous

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🤣🤣🤣
Sounds like something an over privileged dickhead would say who never had to struggle or fight for anything in life.

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That sounds like blaming anxiety on the person experiencing anxiety. “Just cope with it” is not going to help if they’ve hit their breaking point. Yes, there are coping skills, but some stressors are more than even the best can handle.

Anxiety is not a personal failure.

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Anxiety comes down to neurotransmitters that inevitably affect anyone’s mood. If someone has an imbalance of these, they will feel anxiety inevitably regardless of how “tough” they are. This is especially true for anyone who has faced trauma. Personal grit will only get you so far (even if it does get you far).

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Anxiety is not a “bad” emotion to be avoided. It’s just an emotion, like all others, that needs managed.

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In some cases that can be true, but the causes of anxiety can be far more wide-ranging. It’s not a “one size fits all” situation.

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Some people have anxiety even when there are no challenges or adversity and they are successful and high functioning. I think anxiety disorder is sometimes the result of poor diet, gut problems, lack of sleep. Anxiety can be managed with healthy lifestyle choices

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I couldn’t agree less

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No. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations, like losing your job, or your house burning down.

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Agree

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I can be confident that I know exactly how to solve a problem, and still experience anxiety. There's always variables.

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Note that i keep saying physical. Its intentional because these are real chemicals not metaphysical "feelings". If you were to look under a microscope you could actually see your body having a reaction to the stimulus.

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If that were true, you’d be able to logic and reason your way out of it.

Trust me, if you struggle with anxiety, you can’t.

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Completely agree. As someone who has dealt with anxiety at different levels, its on the person to learn how to cope, prevent, and manage situations

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No. Anxiety is normal for growth, challenges or that “gut instinct” many of us have that keeps you out of danger. It isn’t normal if it becomes crippling in daily living or maybe unusual fears of something, ie; cat hair 🤓

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There are different levels of anxiety and anxiety attacks. People can learn over time how to improve their responses to situations.

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Then we are interpreting the description very differently. I work in stressful situations on a daily basis. Stress abs anxiety are not the same. Anxiety is an extreme symptom of not handling the stress, but that doesn't mean its how you always respond. I would say its a more rare response.

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That may be too reductive for my taste.

I do think that may apply to many individuals. But not everyone.

Mrs. Shadow is one of, if not the most anxiety ridden ppl I have ever met. She is also one of the most intelligence, independent, and capable humans I have ever met. He does a fantastic job managing it in her professional life, but there has to be something more to anxiety than just learning different behaviors.

To my knowledge I have never experienced anxiety, and I would argue Ive done nothing to achieve that.

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Cured? Hell no. Improved and managed? Yes.

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Disagree. I think that’s something someone would say who has not faced massive issues. Sometimes there are issue so devastating, so grave that anyone would get anxiety.

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Clinical anxiety may not be a personal failure, but most of what I run into fits the never having learned to deal with adversity, discomfort, dissatisfaction or disappointment.

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No, it just didnt seem like you understood. Not sure what you arguing against here.

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Comes down to how you see yourself and your situation -

You’re either: A) a victim (woe is me), or:
B) a problem-solver, looking for solutions when things go sideways

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It can be, but it is also a diagnosable mental disorder.

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Very true.

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Not learning to or not choosing to

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some people suffer with it, I dont think it’s a matter of “chilling out” for them. I’m pretty chill by nature.

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I think anxiety in and of itself is not something you can control, or at least not all the time, but the symptoms of it are often the result of not knowing how to cope.

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When we hear the news talk about “increased anxiety” about this or that, they really mean distress which is the opposite of eustress which is “good anxiety”.

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In some cases, maybe. But Cud’s comment below nailed the physicality of it, and FatShadow is right in that the poll is too reductive. I’m guessing what you intended to highlight were those who don’t have the emotional maturity to handle regular life situations and therefore stress out needlessly?

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Anxiety is a departure from a connection to the reality of one’s existence….

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Oh I believe it. Brain cells need food and sleep to function too.

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ROC WTF

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But according to the OP, you would still be considered unfit to deal with stress.

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No drugs

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Thank you for sharing that, FATSHADOW.

Your comment included the statement, “To my knowledge I have never experienced anxiety, and I would argue Ive done nothing to achieve that.” Maybe you were raised in an environment in which you were taught to cope with adversity without even realizing it?

I used to go from 0 to 10, feeling anxiety, when I was younger. The Navy and spending time with shipmates taught me the value of becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, or “embracing the suck”. I rarely feel any anxiety now. When it does happen, I’ve gotten good at recognizing when it’s ramping up and I’m able to talk myself down.