Anyone diagnosed with anxiety?

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Greetings. I was diagnosed with generalized and social anxiety disorder for sure. I am not sure if my medical records say OCD and/or panic disorder, because I talked to my pdoc about it. I am a textbook case in terms of social anxiety. I have had symptoms of it since I was a little kid in kindergarten. Back then though, it was more like selective mutism, because I wouldn't even talk, and if I did talk, I would whisper it.

Anyways, in terms of generalized anxiety, it means you have anxiety of things going on in your life (ie. events/activities) more than others. And you have to show 4 of 6 symptoms of it. Kids only need 1. For me, I worry too much about school, friends, family, work, and have restlessness, muscle tension, easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating/mind going black, and sleep disturbance when the anxiety is really bad.

Hope this gives you more idea on GAD.

I wonder why I am diagnosed with anxiety disorder than with a specific kind? What make a doctor diagnose "anxiety disorder" than social anxiety, PTSD, GAD, specific phobia, panic disorder, and OCD which is no longer party of the anxiety family under the DSM 5.

You maybe are diagnosed with "anxiety disorder" because you don't have specific symptoms of a specific anxiety disorder. When so you have symptoms of many anxiety disorders, I think you could to be diagnosed with "anxiety disorder" or "anxiety disorder NOS". Some anxiety disorders are similar in symptomatology.

Diagnostic labels are really just to describe a constellation of symptoms that fit with how others have described their experiences. So I think it makes sense that people aren't going to fit neatly in one category or another at times. For me, I have symptoms from many disorders, especially anxiety ones, though I am only currently diagnosed with social phobia because I get panic attacks in front of crowds and had to work on it during college. I didn't talk about having panic attacks at grocery stores, or not being able to go to certain places from anxiety, or my obsessive thoughts because I felt they were all too general and my baseline for them to be "true" disordered behaviors (though they definitely are, but I couldn't find anything that I fit so I didn't think I was abnormal there). So I'm on board with the anxiety disorder NOS being possible.

Pretty much, yes. I more or less just worry constantly over simple or little things for no reason. A lot of medical professionals have told me this is due to my autism. Though, I still tell people I have severe anxiety on top of it. I don't really fit the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder since I don't really get the pre-effects of it. I just like... as I said, worry constantly to the point where I panic in my mind basically. That's it though because I don't really express my anxiety physically at all.

What are "pre-effects" of generalized anxiety?

Can one still be diagnosed with anxiety if their anxiety is caused by not being accepted and understood and trying to be normal and if they have a learning disability so it causes them a lot of frustrations?

What if a slow learner had anxiety from stress of having to work harder and try harder than everyone else because of their low intelligence, can they still be diagnosed as having a anxiety disorder? What about an autistic person or anyone else with a disability? It is my understanding that anxiety disorders normally can't be diagnosed if it is explained by a mood disorder or schizophrenia, pervasive developmental disorder, etc.

My psychiatrist gave me anxiety, OCD, and Asperger's diagnoses and also ADD. In my husband's opinion, I was given those because my psychiatrist didn't know what was wrong with me so I was given all those where he thinks I fit because when he was a boy, he was given three different learning disabilities labels because he had symptoms from each one but none of them fit so he was given all three diagnoses like I was with mine. So does that mean he only has dyslexia traits and not dyslexia? I don't know but I don't think that matters. All I know is he is not good with memorizing numbers and he isn't good with spelling and memorizing how the words are spelled due to his brain damage. I sometimes like to look at diagnoses as what kind of help the person needs and how much to a degree they need it so a diagnoses is given. I have always thought I don't have any textbook cases of either conditions out there.

It is also my understanding that anxiety (or many diagnoses) cannot be made when the symptoms are explained by another disorder, in general, but for anxiety (and for other mood disorders) I see this as not relevant to my health. I may have generalized or social anxiety, I certainly have persistent dysthymia (or whatever they're calling major depressive disorder now), and I absolutely have Asperger's. But these labels are irrelevant, by themselves. What is relevant is how they manifest in my life, and how I understand them (particularly Asperger's), and if I identify them as problematic. And therapy and meds have helped with those, as well as starting to understand my Asperger's. There is so much overlap, and diagnostic criteria change and will continue to change.

So in my opinion it's not so relevant what type of anxiety I have. What is relevant is that I'm progressively finding some happiness in life, and understanding my specific constellation of symptoms and thinking that have made things so tough for me. My 2 cents.

I was diagnosed with Selective Mutism in Primary school. It has not gone away, let me tell you, but I think it's morphed a little into social anxiety...

i am new here even though ive had wrong planet since 2011 and i have social anxiety and hardly go outside

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

thank you. trying to understand how to use this site. changed since i last used it.

I think that to have learning difficulties or disabilities that make daily live harder and debilitate to do simple tasks, it gets anxiety or depression. It's because that they sometimes don't diagnose anxiety disorder or a specific anxiety disorder, because they first treat anxiety and later try to help with the disabilities. In my view many times they classify "anxiety disorder" if they aren't so sure if the core of anxiety is another thing (some problem in the past, memory or stressing time in your life), then they don't know if the anxiety is getting learning disabilities/problems, if they don't have yet the criteria for diagnosis or simply diagnose "anxiety disorder NOS" if you have an extra anxiety than the often anxiety of PDD and other conditions that cause peripheric anxiety.

I have not been diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, but I do believe I have it; I constantly worry over everything and sometimes it leads to a full on panic attack.

While I never have had a diagnosis, I believe I do have some form of anxiety. I will panic over even the tiniest of things and even stimming will not help me. It seems that every other day I am panicking over something trivial. And the worst part is that it annoys my mom, so she ends up getting really annoyed with only makes my anxiety worse!