Can Generalized Anxiety Disorder Be Overcome?
Your eyes dart about the room looking for a way of escape. Somehow you form the words to excuse yourself and you quickly exit through the nearest door. Once outside, you wonder if these panic attacks will ever end, or if you will ever have a normal life. You think it is impossible, but uncontrollable anxiety does not have to overtake your life. As a teen and into my mid-twenties, I suffered from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or G.A.D., a psychiatric condition defined by excessive worry and often accompanied by panic attacks (“Do you worry too much?”, 2007, p. 6). Everyone experiences normal anxiety in their life, like the nervousness felt before giving a speech, taking a Drivers-Ed test, or moving to a new town. People with G.A.D., however, are faced with extreme, often unrealistic, fears. Picture yourself accidentally cutting someone off in traffic. Within a few moments the act is a distant memory. A G.A.D. sufferer may dwell on those ten seconds for the rest of their day, creating al
