Anxiety has a tendency to strike at the most inconvenient moments, often targeting the issues that weigh most heavily on our minds as we progress through life. It’s crucial to understand that what we worry about, experience panic over, or obsess about can shift as we move through different life stages. I think about some recent clients, each facing unique life challenges:
- A 40-year-old man whose father has just retired. Now, whenever he discards any unnecessary paper, his OCD convinces him that he’s wasting his parent’s retirement funds, leading him to fear they might face financial ruin.
- A second-year medical student who recently achieved a stellar score on her first standardized medical test. She came to see me, anxiously clutching a thick stack of emails she had sent while serving as treasurer of her college sorority. She fears she might have made a mistake and that the IRS could imprison her, jeopardizing her future.
- A high school freshman who is so anxious about every paper, homework task, and grade that she has lost weight and become isolated from friends, dedicating all her time to studying out of fear of not gaining college acceptance. Despite this, she achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA in her first semester.
Each of these individuals sought therapy to address the pressing issues they were experiencing, and each issue was new to them. Just a year prior, these concerns would not have affected them so intensely — the 40-year-old’s father was still employed and financially stable; the medical student was just beginning her journey, not yet worried about standardized testing or its implications for her future; and the freshman was still in middle school, where academic concerns were less intense, and friendships were more plentiful.
In therapy, I had to assist each client in realizing that the subjects at hand were simply the latest ways anxiety had chosen to intrude upon their lives. The core issue wasn’t the material itself, but rather their reactions — worrying, avoiding, double-checking, and over-preparing fed into their anxiety. A vital part of the healing process was adopting a new perspective, allowing them to detach themselves and say, “It’s only anxiety (or OCD).”
Of course, we still had significant work to engage in, including real and imagined exposures combined with mindfulness practices. Recognizing that the real problem lies in anxiety and how one reacts to it, rather than in the specific content of those worries, is the essential first step toward healing, regardless of what anxiety may present at various points in our lives.
This blog was originally posted on Anxiety Training for Mental Health Professionals.