Anxiety Hides One's True Self

Anxiety has many ill effects on a person's life. Future articles will detail how the body responds in a nonspecific manner to stress (which includes anxiety) and actually can cause emotional and physical health problems. Another adverse effect of anxiety is that it hides a person's real self, and this effect can be very psychologically damaging, to the point where some may consider suicide. While this is a very severe effect, the converse idea that finding one's self leads to less anxiety and more relaxation, is also true.

How does this happen that anxiety hides a person's real self? First, very basically, it is important to understand that anxiety is a defense against a real or perceived threat. While people in general tend to view anxiety as a bad thing, a certain amount of it is a good thing. The good part about anxiety is that people become anxious in situations that may really be dangerous, such as going into a dark alley in a bad part of the city at night. In this case, anxiety is very useful because it tells people to not go down the dark alley, as doing so could be the end of one's life.

Bad anxiety is that anxiety which is telling a person there is danger, when in fact there is none, and having anxiety when there really is no need for it is what hides a person's self. For a person with social anxiety, for example, a person across the street may look at the anxiety sufferer in an odd way, and the socially anxious person may think that this person may hate him or her, when in fact that person could care less. There are an infinite number of ways that social anxiety and other anxiety disorders can affect one's less negatively.

The problem that results from consistently unnecessary anxiety is that people tend to define themselves and determine who they are in relation to their anxiety. Those who continue to be anxious into late adulthood and never marry may think of themselves as "loners." Because of different life events, such as people who went out of their way to traumatize the anxiety sufferer, the anxiety sufferer can only relate to the world in terms of his or her condition. Many anxiety sufferers have incredible gifts or talents, but are just so afraid to show them to others that they never end up making a serious attempt at showing off their talent. How many anxiety sufferers are there out there that can do things perfectly fine by themselves such as play a guitar, excel at a sport, or speak effectively, but then lose all hope and confident at these skills when in front of any other people? In reality, people such as this are very talented people, but appear to others to be untalented, awkward, and clumsy.

In order to be able to show off their talents and grow as people, it is necessary for the anxiety sufferer to challenge this notion that he or she is a "loner, untalented, or awkward" person. Anxiety is only part of a person; it is not what people really are. Some anxiety in front of others is normal, but anxiety to the point where cannot function or where one's performance is significantly inhibited is unhealthy and harms a person. Anxiety can be successfully managed and one can get everything that he or she desires if he or she continues to work at it. If one is a talented singer, hilarious comedian, or excellent orator, that is who one really is. This anxious mess that consumes one's life is not who one really is. Rather, it is a problem that has grown out of control, but that can be successfully managed.

For many, another problem is that they have no idea who they are altogether; all they have known is that they are anxious and have been that way their entire lives. For those that fall into this group, it is important to note that all people have useful contributions and talents that can be used to help society. In this case, the talent that one has simply has not yet been discovered. Much self-discovery occurs in one's life as one recovers from anxiety, and self-discovery is most certainly a key to recovering from anxiety. Knowing who one is and what one wants to accomplish in life is a wonderful feeling and serves to alleviate much anxiety.

So, to all the chronically anxious out there who think there is no hope and no point in life, take heart because if one has no meaning, the meaning simply has to be found, and there is meaning for everyone!