Anxiety is one of the leading mental health disorders in the United States. Eighteen percent of the adult population will struggle with an anxiety disorder at some point in time. The New York Times recently wrote about the “American Anxiety” currently taking over the country. Due to tense political times, high levels of stress, a challenging economy, and a difficult job market, more people are living with anxiety, clinical or not, than ever before. “For the past decade or so,” the author describes, “American anxiety was usually described as either a mental-health issue or a generational style.” Today, as mental health disorders gain critical awareness, people are becoming more mindful of how their interactions with everyday American life, from politics to work, are affecting them and causing them what the article describes as “profound unease.”
What people are experiencing, the article explains, is an emotion of anxiety and uneasiness, rather than an empirically analytical form of anxiety. “Even if they have incoherent or contradictory senses of why, or what it is they fear, or what should be done about it,” people today are experiencing more dis-ease than they have in recent times. Anxiety as a symptom and a mental health disorder revolves around fear of the unknown, which becomes irrational and uncontrollable. “Anxiety, after all, need not be rational, need not be coherent, can contain multitudes,” the author writes. “It’s possible to be anxious about things that will almost certainly never affect you; it’s possible for anxiety to prevent you from accurately assessing danger and making plans to address it.” Problematically, the sense of security many people have had in the systems, policies, processes, and procedures of the past is not the promise of the future. Everything today, in exaggeration and inaccuracy, is unsteady. Trust lies in a place the article characterizes as “more disordered, irrational and human.”
Overcoming anxiety about the current national climate will be a national effort, perfectly synchronized with a nationwide initiative to raise awareness and support treatment for mental health.
Living with anxiety does not have to be chronic and debilitating. If you are overwhelmed by anxiety and it is interfering with your ability to live life, there is hope. Avalon By The Sea is one of California’s few trusted primary mental health treatment programs providing trusted results. Healing mind, body, and spirit, our clinical programs create recovery for a lifetime. For a confidential assessment, call us today at 888-958-7511.
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