Demystifying Psychiatry – 3: What Illness does Psychiatrist Cure?


 In last blog we seen about OCD and Mood disorders with continuation we going analyse few other disorders treat by psychiatrist  

Anxiety Disorder:

Fear is one of the basic emotions of all animals including humans. The young animal will experience fear when they separated from their nurturing Mother. Animals in the wild will experience fear while they see their predators. Same applies to human child start crying when they cannot able to see their mother. As I said fear is inevitable for human kind, dysregulation of fear may also lead to few disorders. These dysregulations can show up as sudden spike or persistent generalised anxiety disorder. This fear overlaps the brain system with depression so it common that most depressive disorders have anxiety disorders as comorbid, but there are few anxiety disorders that affect without depression. The most common outcome of anxiety disorder is Panic attack, it can be characterized by high palpitation of heart, feels like dying or feeling heart attack, breathing heavily also known as Hyper ventilation.

A funnier part is people having panic attacks might not know when it occurs but humans are good that connecting the dots so they started connect when they get panic attack and where they get. For an example when a person gets panic attack on crowded area he may suffer from Agoraphobia- the fear of crowded space. A person who fears of about the traumatic event happened in past and feel difficult in sleep due to dreaming of that event may happen again is a classic example of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Myth Buster of Anxiety Disorder

1.       Myth: Anxiety is just overthinking, Anxiety is only in mind, People with Anxiety just need to be calm
Buster: Anxiety disorders are much more than worrying. They involve the constant fear that affects the day today life and it is not a choice without proper treatment and lifestyle changes it may affect their emotional, social, physical and psychological well-being. Anxiety may also cause physical symptoms like shortness of breath, heart palpitations, stomach discomfort even muscle tension

2.       Myth: Anxiety is always bad; it always need medication as line of treatment
Buster: Normal Anxiety help us to respond challenges and danger. For an example anxiety before exam make you to study well but when your anxiety affects your studying process then it is disorder, there are various psychotherapies that helps to reduce the anxiety medication may be used only on severe cases.

3.       Myth: Anxiety is for weak people; if someone smiles, they don’t have anxiety
Buster: Anxiety disorder can affect any one regardless age, gender, profession or personality. Seeking help is sign to self-awareness not a sign of weakness. People with anxiety works and looks normal outside while struggling inside. Symptoms are not always visible


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