Living with an anxiety disorder can feel like you’re always one-step away from disaster, like you can’t let down your guard even with friends and loved ones, or like you shouldn’t even risk getting out of bed in the morning.
However, whatever your anxiety feels like to you, treatment is available to help you live a happier, more controlled, and more confident life.
Anxiety Disorder Treatment At Bedrock Recovery Center
Bedrock Recovery Center is a primary residential mental health treatment provider located in Canton and not far from the historic city of Boston.
We place our patients’ needs first, providing expert mental health services and anxiety disorder treatment for adults from across the United States.
Our multidisciplinary treatment options include medication management, stabilization services, one-on-one psychotherapy, group therapy, and other evidence-based treatment services.
Types Of Anxiety Disorders
There are a number of different types of anxiety disorders, each with different characteristics. It’s also possible for a person to suffer from more than one anxiety disorder at a time or to experience different anxiety disorders at different points in time.
These are the most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorders.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
GAD often occurs in combination with other anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other medical conditions.
This anxiety disorder involves persistent, excessive, and unwarranted anxiety and worry that interferes with one’s daily life.
Panic Disorder (Panic Attacks)
Panic disorder is a condition of sudden, debilitating anxiety and terror that often features a sense of impending threat, shortness of breath, chest pain, and heart palpitations.
This may cause a person to avoid situations or locations where they experienced a panic attack in the past.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation anxiety disorder is a condition in which a child experiences excessive distress when separated from parents or other caregivers.
Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)
Social anxiety disorder is a condition characterized by anxiety related to social situations along with intense feelings of paranoia, embarrassment, and self-consciousness.
Specific phobias
Phobias involve sudden, intense fear related to a specific object or situation, along with an irrational urge to avoid that object or situation.
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia involves anxiety and avoidance behavior towards places or situations in which a person believes they will feel trapped, helpless, or exposed.
Diagnosing Anxiety Disorders
Each form of anxiety disorder has its own diagnostic criteria under the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition), which can only be diagnosed by a psychologist or certain mental health professionals.
This process may also involve a physical exam to rule out any other potential causes, as well as screenings for other common co-occurring disorders like depression or behavioral disorders.
Signs & Symptoms Of Anxiety
While everyone experiences worry and uncertainty, those with anxiety disorders usually feel these feelings with unnecessary intensity over long periods of time, along with mental and physical symptoms.
These may include:
- feeling nervous, worried, restless, or trapped
- increased heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and sweating
- muscle tension or trembling
- weakness or fatigue
- concentration problems
- sleep problems
- a preoccupation with avoiding situations that may trigger anxiety attacks
These symptoms will generally be severe enough to interfere with one’s performance at work or in school, relationships, health, and overall quality of life.
Risk Factors
Risk factors linked with anxiety disorders include:
- childhood trauma
- serious illness
- high levels of stress and insecurity
- certain personality types and genetic factors
- co-occurring mental health conditions
- substance abuse
Statistics On Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are common in the United states and becoming more common. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders impact approximately 19.1% of American adults each year, with only 36.9% of those individuals receiving treatment.
Treatment Of Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are highly treatable using therapy and other interventions, certain FDA-approved medications, and nonprofessional options including self-help tools and support groups.
Medication
When treating anxiety, healthcare providers may prescribe:
- the anti-anxiety medication buspirone
- SSRI, SNRI, and tricyclic antidepressants, especially paroxetine, escitalopram, venlafaxine, and duloxetine
- benzodiazepine medications including alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, and lorazepam (short-term management only)
- monoamine oxidase inhibitors
- beta-blockers
Psychotherapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most effective form of psychological therapy used to treat anxiety disorders.
It is often paired with exposure therapy to help participants build confidence in managing their anxiety over time, relaxation techniques or mindfulness to control different aspects of anxiety, and other forms of counseling and support.
How To Find Anxiety Disorder Treatment
If you believe you have an anxiety disorder, you should first reach out to your primary care provider, as they can refer you to help for psychiatric disorders just as they would for any other physical health problem.
If you’d like anonymous help or guidance, SAMHSA offers a complementary helpline and treatment locator tool that can help you locate and access mental health care in all areas of the United States.
You can then reach out directly to licensed treatment providers in your area or elsewhere.
This includes Bedrock Recovery Center, where we are proud to offer modern, evidence-based, and effective treatment for all forms of anxiety disorder as well as a wide variety of co-occurring mental illnesses and behavioral health issues.
