AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

“I have anx­i­ety!” 

“I have OCD!”

“I am hav­ing a pan­ic at­tack!”

These phras­es are of­ten ca­su­al­ly tossed around when peo­ple face tough sit­u­a­tions—but what do they re­al­ly mean?

It’s im­por­tant to un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence be­tween every­day men­tal health chal­lenges and clin­i­cal men­tal health dis­or­ders, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to anx­i­ety.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 301 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide live with anx­i­ety dis­or­der. This fig­ure rep­re­sents about four per cent of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion. Fur­ther re­search shows that cas­es of anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion in­creased by 25 per cent with­in the first year of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. 

Guardian Me­dia spoke with Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists (TTAP) pres­i­dent Kel­ly Mc­Far­lane and men­tal health ad­vo­cate Iza­iah Lutch­man to shed light on this top­ic as so­ci­ety ob­served Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month in May.

“Anx­i­ety is a nat­ur­al hu­man emo­tion,” said Mc­Far­lane.

Anx­i­ety can af­fect any­one, re­gard­less of age, gen­der, back­ground, or sta­tus. How­ev­er, cer­tain groups are more vul­ner­a­ble due to bi­o­log­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, or so­cial fac­tors.

“It’s a re­sponse to some­thing that the brain per­ceives to be a threat or dan­ger. And to hu­mans in to­day’s world, a threat or a dan­ger could be an ex­am. It could be go­ing in­to the of­fice to talk to your boss. It’s what­ev­er your par­tic­u­lar fears and threats are. Or what you per­ceive as a threat–that’s what leads to you feel­ing anx­i­ety.”

Ac­cord­ing to med­ical stud­ies, signs of anx­i­ety may in­clude ner­vous­ness, a rac­ing heart­beat and sleep­less­ness. These symp­toms are usu­al­ly tem­po­rary and sub­side once the stres­sor is re­moved. 

How­ev­er, med­ical jour­nals note that for an anx­i­ety dis­or­der to be di­ag­nosed, symp­toms must per­sist for at least six months. This du­ra­tion helps dis­tin­guish be­tween a tem­po­rary stress re­sponse and a chron­ic con­di­tion that may re­quire clin­i­cal at­ten­tion.

“Anx­i­ety dis­or­ders are per­sis­tent. So you feel anx­ious re­gard­less of what we would call a ‘stim­uli’… So some­body with an anx­i­ety dis­or­der may just feel anx­ious, just be­cause. It may not need a trig­ger to feel anx­ious,” Lutch­man said.

Whether it’s gen­er­alised anx­i­ety dis­or­der (GAD), pan­ic dis­or­der, so­cial anx­i­ety dis­or­der, or sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety dis­or­der, these chron­ic forms of anx­i­ety are per­va­sive and can be phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly de­bil­i­tat­ing.

Ob­ses­sive–com­pul­sive dis­or­der (OCD), in par­tic­u­lar, is an­oth­er con­di­tion that is fre­quent­ly mis­un­der­stood, mis­used, and mis­la­belled in every­day con­ver­sa­tions.

“You have a cer­tain colour of clothes­line pins you like to use in a cer­tain or­der; you cor­re­late that to OCD. It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the same thing. OCD is a dis­or­der that’s some­times crip­pling to per­sons. So you mak­ing light of that may not al­ways be good, as it makes per­sons with the ac­tu­al dis­or­der feel less than or like their dis­or­der is not nec­es­sar­i­ly some­thing that should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly,” Lutch­man added. 

Heart pal­pi­ta­tions, short­ness of breath, ex­ces­sive sweat­ing, mus­cle ten­sion, body tremors, di­ges­tive is­sues, rest­less­ness and ex­ces­sive wor­ry­ing may be among the symp­toms of var­i­ous anx­i­ety dis­or­ders. 

While home reme­dies such as deep breath­ing ex­er­cis­es and mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion may help man­age symp­toms, Mc­Far­lane warns that if left un­treat­ed, per­sis­tent and ex­ces­sive anx­i­ety can es­ca­late in­to a clin­i­cal anx­i­ety dis­or­der.

In­di­vid­u­als should al­so avoid self-di­ag­nos­ing or re­ly­ing sole­ly on the in­ter­net or ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence tools to as­sess their con­di­tion. On­ly a qual­i­fied men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al can de­ter­mine whether your symp­toms point to an anx­i­ety dis­or­der

“When you don’t treat your ten­den­cy to ex­pe­ri­ence anx­i­ety, and things keep pil­ing up and pil­ing up, what could hap­pen is that that could lead you in­to de­vel­op­ing an anx­i­ety dis­or­der. And then when you de­vel­op an anx­i­ety dis­or­der, it is chron­ic, so you now have to treat it, put it in­to re­mis­sion and to learn how to cope. So that even if you have an episode, you can kind of come out of the episode a lit­tle ear­ly and quick­er than usu­al,” she said. 

But be­yond treat­ment, Lutch­man said the role of fam­i­ly and friends was cru­cial.

“Nor­mal­is­ing the fact that a men­tal health dis­or­der or these men­tal health symp­toms are nor­mal makes a per­son feel as if what they’re go­ing through doesn’t alien­ate them from every­one else. They’re al­so more like­ly to ac­cept help. So what a fam­i­ly can do is tell the per­son, ‘This is okay. We un­der­stand what you’re go­ing through. What do you need in this mo­ment?’ Not, ‘This is all in your head. You just need to get over it’.”

If you or some­one you know is strug­gling with men­tal health is­sues, help is avail­able. Re­sources can be ac­cessed via Find­CareTT and through ser­vices by re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties. The Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists al­so pro­vides a di­rec­to­ry of li­cenced men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als you can con­tact.

BOX

Types of dis­or­ders ex­plained

1. Gen­er­alised Anx­i­ety Dis­or­der (GAD)

GAD in­volves per­sis­tent and ex­ces­sive wor­ry about every­day things—such as health, work, or so­cial in­ter­ac­tions—even when there’s lit­tle or no rea­son to wor­ry. This wor­ry is of­ten dif­fi­cult to con­trol and may be ac­com­pa­nied by symp­toms like rest­less­ness, fa­tigue, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, and dif­fi­cul­ty con­cen­trat­ing.

2. Pan­ic Dis­or­der

This con­di­tion is marked by sud­den, re­peat­ed pan­ic at­tacks—in­tense episodes of fear that come on quick­ly and peak with­in min­utes. Symp­toms can in­clude a rac­ing heart, chest pain, short­ness of breath, dizzi­ness, and a feel­ing of los­ing con­trol or im­pend­ing doom, even when there’s no ac­tu­al dan­ger.

3. So­cial Anx­i­ety Dis­or­der

Al­so known as so­cial pho­bia, this dis­or­der in­volves an in­tense fear of so­cial sit­u­a­tions or be­ing judged, em­bar­rassed, or re­ject­ed. Peo­ple may avoid pub­lic speak­ing, meet­ing new peo­ple, or even eat­ing in front of oth­ers.

4. Sep­a­ra­tion Anx­i­ety Dis­or­der

While com­mon­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with chil­dren, this can af­fect peo­ple of all ages. It in­volves ex­ces­sive fear or anx­i­ety about be­ing sep­a­rat­ed from peo­ple to whom the in­di­vid­ual is at­tached. This can lead to pan­ic, re­fusal to leave home, or phys­i­cal symp­toms like headaches and stom­ach aches.

5. Ob­ses­sive–Com­pul­sive Dis­or­der (OCD)

OCD in­volves un­want­ed, in­tru­sive thoughts (ob­ses­sions) and repet­i­tive be­hav­iours or men­tal rit­u­als (com­pul­sions) aimed at re­duc­ing the anx­i­ety those thoughts cause. For ex­am­ple, ob­sess­ing about germs might lead to ex­ces­sive hand­wash­ing. The cy­cle can sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­rupt dai­ly life.