Anxiety is a term that causes intense fear, nervousness, and worry. Millions of people around the world are struggling to manage this condition, as it impacts their ability to function.
So, does anxiety qualify as a disability?
The answer is yes!
It can be considered a disability in some circumstances. It’s an invisible disability as it brings serious challenges, such as panic attacks, that prevent you from attending social gatherings, learning, working, or maintaining relationships.
However, anxiety can be mild and severe; it’s crucial to understand when it crosses the line from common symptoms to disability.
In this article, you will get to know about anxiety, how it can become a disability, types of anxiety, and how it can be treated with professional help.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a mental health condition that causes unease and fear and puts the individual in a fight-or-flight response. It causes excessive and persistent symptoms that interfere with everyday life activities. It’s very normal to get nervous or remain in worry before a big event or a presentation. However, if repeated episodes of anxiety, fear, and terror lead to panic attacks, then it can lead to invisible disability.
What is Mental Disability?
A mental disability can severely impact a person’s life, but cannot be seen! Living with a mental disability can feel like living with a heavy burden that no one can feel. Mental health disabilities can be bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, or PTSD; these can change a person’s life upside down as they impact their ability to socialize, work, or manage day-to-day tasks.
However, people living with invisible mental health disabilities are often misunderstood as being lazy, which eventually leads the other person to remain in shame or isolated from the world.
How Anxiety Can Become a Disability?
Anxiety can be considered a disability if it affects an individual’s health, ability to work, or ability to meet other people. Additionally, if anxiety gets severe, it makes them unable to get up from bed, making them professionally unable. All these symptoms affect their finances and health. Individuals with anxiety also struggle with physical symptoms, including rapid heartbeat, fast breathing, sweating, and more.
What are the common anxiety disorders that can be considered a disability
1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder
GAD is a mental health condition that causes extreme worry and excessive fears that interfere with everyday tasks, such as work and school. People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder worry intensely about every small matter without any clear reason. The excessive stress can lead to headaches and body aches without any specific reason, which eventually leads to anxiety disability.
2. Panic Disorder
It’s a mental health condition that causes panic attacks; these panic attacks can be triggered by something or can occur without any clear reason. Panic attacks occur suddenly and unpredictably and cause a variety of painful physical and psychological symptoms. All these factors lead to anxiety disability as people can’t meet people or go out due to panic fears.
3. Social Anxiety Disorder
Individuals living with social anxiety disorder have a fear of social gatherings or related activities. People experiencing social anxiety avoid working in public or interacting with other people, which disrupts their lives. These avoidances cause individuals to stay isolated and avoid important meetings and work commitments.
4. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a mental illness in which a person experiences unwanted thoughts, known as obsessions. These thoughts can have various themes, such as fear of contamination, symmetry and order, and doubts. The person feels compelled to ease these obsessions by constantly doing it again and again. Individuals with this condition keep thinking about past activities and blaming themselves, which affects their daily life functioning, as they spend a lot of time doing these behaviors.
5. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
It’s a mental health condition that occurs after experiencing a traumatic or stressful life event. It’s a chronic mental health condition that makes the person traumatised as they have nightmares and flashbacks, which causes anxiety and impacts everyday life. So, if the anxiety is so overwhelming that it prevents you from doing essential things, then it can be considered a disability.
6. Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is a complex mental health situation in which individuals avoid going out and situations where they fear may be triggered. They have an excessive fear that they might be trapped in a situation where no one can help them. It impacts daily life activities, work, and relationships.
How to help anxiety and prevent it from becoming a disability?
If you feel like your anxiety symptoms are interfering with your life and you are unable to control them, and are disturbing your mental health and overall well-being, then without any delay, seek professional help. Share your mental health issues, and get rid of your anxiety disability. A mental healthcare specialist will check your medical history, family history, severity of symptoms and conduct some questionnaires to diagnose the exact condition. They follow the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) to provide the exact diagnosis.
How can anxiety be treated professionally?
A mental healthcare specialist recommends some medications and therapies, or sometimes combines both to get the desired results.
Medications
Some of the common medications that can help reduce the symptoms of anxiety disability include:
- Benzodiazepines
- Buspirone
- Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors
- Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors
Note: Only a mental health care specialist can prescribe medications after examining the condition.
Psychotherapies
Psychotherapy or talk therapy helps individuals to treat or manage their common mental issues, such as anxiety. The following are the main therapies that are useful for treating anxiety disorders:
1. Exposure and Response prevention therapy
This involves the gradual exposure of individuals to the place, person, or any other situation that reminds them of traumatic events. The exposure and response prevention therapy is performed in a controlled environment.
Individuals are asked to stop showing their response to their exposure to the trauma-related trigger factors. Initially, individuals face difficulties, but with time, they become addicted to the situation and learn not to show the response. It helps people with agrophobia, PTSD, and social anxiety.
2. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT is a talk therapy that focuses on identifying and altering negative thoughts, feelings, emotions, beliefs, and the associated behavior into their positive versions. The main purpose of CBT is to settle intrusive thoughts and beliefs, and change them into positive and helpful ones.In CBT sessions, experts develop a secure and friendly environment for individuals so they can speak their hearts out and find the best and most effective treatment plans.
3. Group Therapy
Group therapy also works best for managing the symptoms of anxiety disability. In group therapy sessions, individuals suffering from the same mental issue share their mental struggles, previous life experiences with each other, and learn various skills, such as social skills, and also increase their confidence and self-esteem. It also helps individuals who don’t seek treatment due to stigma or remain isolated.
4. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
DBT is also a form of Cognitive behavioural therapy. DBT is for those people who are struggling with emotional distress. DBT is based on the idea that two opposing things can co-exist. In therapy, it means that you can accept your thoughts and emotions and still move on from them by changing them into productive thoughts and emotions. For people with anxiety, OCD, and other mental health conditions, Dialectical behavior therapy helps manage distressing emotions that direct one’s behaviors..
However, DBT has proven effective when incorporated with ERP for treating OCD.
Nurture Your Mental Health At Renewed Mental Health Group
Are you suffering from anxiety? Or do you feel like anxiety symptoms are impacting your daily functioning? At Renewed Mental Health Group, we understand how hard it is to live with mental disability! We have a team of mental health professionals who provide therapies and medications according to the severity of your condition. Our experienced team of professional experts provides personalized and evidence-based treatments with holistic therapeutic approaches.
You can also get psychiatric treatments from the comfort of your home through our telepsychiatric services.
Book your consultations today, and take the first step toward healing.
Concluding Thoughts
Anxiety is a mental health condition that takes a toll on well-being and disturbs one’s life. If anxiety interferes with everyday life, it can be called a disability. People with anxiety disability tend to remain alone as their anxiety can be triggered at any time and makes them embarrassed. There are other anxiety types that can be considered as disabilty, such as GAD, PTSD, OCD, agoraphobia, social anxiety, and panic disorder. Mental disabilities are invisible, and only the person who is experiencing them can feel them. It can be treated with a combination of medication and therapies, and individuals can live a happy, fulfilling life.