How heavy could Generalized Anxiety Disorder affect a sufferer?

Sorrow, fear and worries are integral part of everyday routine of millions of anxiety disorders patients from all around the World. Ordinary worries and anxiety are an crucial part of human life. They help us to escape unpleasant and dangerous situations and therefore have warning or adaptive function.

The fear is every time tied to a specific thing or a situation and anxiety is an indeterminate moving event. The menace in Generalized Anxiety Disorder is less visible, unclear, therefore it is commonly explained as a floating fear. If the fears, worries and anxiety start to conquer and control patients life, when they start to seriously interfere with their home, social and business activities, then we can say that the individual definitely suffers from an anxiety disorder.

Psychological symptoms of anxiety disorders are overwhelming fear and trembling, feeling of constant tension or internal turmoil, hard to concentrate. The person gets agitated very easily and can become extremely sensitive to noises. Also, in most cases anxiety disorder patients develop insomnia (they have big difficulties sleeping, they wake up constantly during the night and might have nightmares during their sleep.)

The most occurring physical symptoms of anxiety disorders are: palpitations or skipping heart beats, feeling difficulties swallowing, dry mouth, problems with breathing (lack of air), chest pain, frequent need to urinate, weakened sexual desire, noise in ears, pins and needles in fingers and toes, trembling hands and many more, depending on the persons.

Anxiety disorders can be grouped in 7 main categories: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder also called Social Phobia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Specific Phobia and Agoraphobia.

The main characteristics of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are: frequent illogical worries, anxiety, fear and expectations of something terrible that might happen, that occur most of the days in a span of at least 2-6 months. The patients find uneasy to control their worries that are in great measure exaggerated considering the situation. Adults suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder most of the time worry about everyday situations, the problems in the workplace, money, family wellbeing, accidents that might happen to their kids, family members, close friends etc.
Unreasonable fear completely overwhelms the its victims and makes them to feel paralyzed, hopeless and unsafe.

In general, GAD is in most cases treated by combination of psychotherapy (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy) and drugs. Drugs mostly used are Antidepressants from the group of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) and at the start of the therapy Benzodiazepines. Some drugs free therapies and methods developed by former sufferers are also producing impressive results and can be bought on the net.