People who suffer from anxiety have a tendency to always be thinking of the future and always wondering what is next. The pain of being abused, or violated, or about feeling pain or being alone, or being sick or disabled, or about someone you love being hurt or killed. We may have fear of failure or fears of success, fears of letting others down or about the fate of the earth. Here is a quote by Mark Twain at the end of his life. “I’m an old man now. I’ve lived a long and difficult life, filled with so many misfortunes. Most of which never happened”.
Fear and embarrassment of the symptoms happening around people just adds to the anxiety. The symptoms include trembling, shakiness, muscle tension, restlessness, easy fatigability, shortness of breathe, rapid heart beat, sweating, dry mouth, dizziness’, nausea, being easily startled, difficulty concentrating or irritability. People with excessive anxiety, stay in a frozen state of fear. This renders them, always hoping for some sort of pleasure while dreading some kind of pain. The conclusion is all anxiety is anticipatory. It’s all based on future events. You may have a hard time putting your finger on the root cause of these feelings.
According to Peter Levine a leading expert in trauma anxiety can actually one of the symptoms associated with trauma. Many people have traumatic symptoms that go unrecognized. For example 15% of all adults suffer from panic attacks, unexplained anxiety or phobias. As many as 75% of the people who see doctors have complaints that are labeled psychosomatic because no physical explanation can be found for them. In my work I believe many of these people have traumatic histories which at least contribute to the problem of anxiety. Anxiety is a thinking disease; however it is essential to seek professional help in order to get to the root cause of a person’s anxiety.