It can be difficult to know when to seek professional help for anxiety from an anxiety specialist. Many people experience anxiety as a normal part of life, but sometimes it becomes overwhelming and interferes with day-to-day functioning. Here are some specific criteria, that can help you decide whether it’s time to consult an anxiety specialist.
Interference with Daily Life:
- Significant Impact on Functioning: If your anxiety is interfering significantly with your normal routine, occupational or academic performance, or social activities and relationships, it’s time to consider professional help. Anxiety that prevents you from doing the things you need or want to do is a strong indicator that specialist help would be beneficial.
- Avoidance: Are you avoiding people, places, or situations in order to manage your anxiety? If you are altering your life to avoid anxiety, this is a sign that the anxiety has become a problem that needs addressing.
- Narrowed Life Space: If anxiety-related avoidance has narrowed your life space, preventing you from engaging with living, it’s time to consider a different approach.
- Putting Life on Hold: If you’re putting your life on hold while waiting for your anxiety to lessen, this is an indication to seek support.
- Loss of Resources: If you are losing resources and psychological space because of anxiety, professional help can enable you to regain control.
Intensity and Duration of Anxiety:
- Prolonged Anxiety: If you experience excessive anxiety and worry more days than not for at least six months about a number of events or activities, and you find it difficult to control the worry, you may benefit from specialist help.
- Frequent Anxiety Attacks: If you find yourself facing anxiety often or having anxiety attacks that persist, it would be advisable to consult a doctor. If you are experiencing compelling and frequent anxious episodes that get in the way of your functioning, you may be experiencing an anxiety disorder.
- Unexplained Anxiety: Anxiety that flares up with no identifiable cause also needs to be assessed.
Physical and Emotional Symptoms:
- Physical Symptoms: If you have physical symptoms such as muscle tension, heart palpitations, sweating, dizziness, shortness of breath, dry mouth, diarrhoea, abdominal discomfort, fast heartbeat, or swallowing problems, alongside your anxiety, it’s important to seek medical advice to confirm the cause.
- Emotional Distress: If you are experiencing restlessness, a sense of impending doom, a fear of dying, a fear of embarrassment or humiliation, or a fear of something terrible happening, it is recommended that you seek support. If your anxiety is causing you significant distress, this may mean you need extra help to manage it.
- Suicidal or Depressed Thoughts: If you have suicidal or depressed thoughts on a regular basis you should seek professional help immediately.
- Difficulty Identifying Emotions: If you have a hard time identifying your emotions, especially when anxiety is present, you may benefit from specialist help.
- Overwhelm: Experiencing overwhelming nervousness, tension, fear, forgetfulness, or panic can signal a need for support from a professional.
Impact on Values and Goals:
- Inability to Engage with Living: If you are so busy surviving that you don’t engage with living, this is a sign you may need support to help you to connect with your values.
- Inconsistent with Values: If you notice that your actions are moving you away from your life goals, this is an indication that you would benefit from support to move towards your chosen life directions.
- Barriers to Values: Most barriers for anxious clients involve anxiety-related thoughts and feelings, as well as strategies used to manage and control them. If this is the case for you then professional help is advisable.
Ineffective Coping Strategies:
- Self-Help is Not Working: If self-help techniques have not fully helped you to understand or alleviate your anxiety, it is worth seeking additional support. If you have tried to manage your anxiety and have not found long term relief, you may want to consider working with a professional.
- Negative Coping Strategies: If you are relying on wishful thinking or self-blame to cope with your anxiety, it may be helpful to consult a professional.
- Struggling with Internal Harmony: If you are unable to offer kindness and acceptance to yourself, this might indicate that you may benefit from the help of a professional.
- Unhelpful Problem-Solving: If your anxiety is rooted in taking your mind’s rules literally, and when your responses to anxiety stop you from living a full life, this may mean it is a good idea to seek out specialist help.
Other Factors:
- Failed Previous Treatments: If you’ve not improved with other providers or treatments, a specialist can provide a different approach.
- Trauma: If you have experienced trauma, an anxiety specialist may be able to provide appropriate support, particularly where there is no recollection of the trauma.
- Substance Abuse: If your anxiety is linked to drug or alcohol use, a specialist can assist you in addressing both issues.
Seeking help from a private anxiety treatment or anxiety treatment, is advisable when anxiety significantly interferes with your daily life, causes intense and prolonged distress, leads to avoidance behaviours, or prevents you from living in alignment with your values. If self-help strategies are not providing sufficient relief, or if you are using negative coping mechanisms, professional help can be beneficial. An anxiety specialist can assist in managing your symptoms and guide you towards a more fulfilling life.
Tags: Anxiety Specialist, Professional Help, Anxiety Management, Daily Functioning, Emotional Distress, Avoidance Behaviours, Intensity of Anxiety, Impact on Values, Ineffective Coping, When to Seek Help, Anxiety Assessment.