Panic Disorder Facts

Hi, My Name Is Sarah And I Need An Ecopsychologist

You might know it: that feeling of powerlessness when you see your local nature reserve steamrolled to build a new housing estate, or the helplessness you experience over climate change. The feeling that, as an individual there is so very little you can really do, and worse, there is no escaping it. Move to the wilds of Canada? I don’t think so . Run away to the Australian Outback? Not a chance .

For me, it began after watching The Age of Stupid . I left the screening gasping for breath. That’s it then, said my brain. Humans are too stupid, too selfish, too ignorant. My life, my plans, my hopes will never come to fruition because in 10 years time we’ll be embroiled in all-out global war ending, inevitably, painfully, finally, in a Cormac McCarthy-style denouement of doom and horror. Wonderful.

My form of campaigning – environmental journalism – came to a pretty abrupt stop after that. I couldn’t focus on anything environment related without being sent back into that panic. I didn’t want to read anything or speak to anyone. In a desperate rush to meet a deadline without doing any of the things that are usually required to write an article I used an old interview with a very well known politician, got all my facts wrong, wrote an opinion that was funny round the dinner table but mortifying when I saw it in print, got threatened with the Press Complaints Commission and that, as they say, was pretty much that.

A year and a half later and I’m just about ready to get back on the eco-horse. I’m feeling strong. I’ve got a bucket full of optimism and another of patience. I’ve started speaking to old contacts again, explaining that my absence was largely down to panic and terror and the occasional insanely unprofessional outburst.

Curiously, instead of cocking their heads to one side in faux sympathy with the crazy lady I’ve found people relating.

“Omg,” they say. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“Some days it’s all I can do to keep it together.”

“Some days I have to lie down in a dark room for a very long time.”

“It’s not just the weight of work on my shoulders,” one person told me, “I feel like I’ve got the entire future of humanity on them.”

Environmental campaigners deal with a lot. News about the state of the world is bad enough, but to be interested in conservation or renewable energy or growing your own food or not wasting stuff is also to open yourself up to plenty of abuse: we’re all soap-dodging, tree-hugging, work-shy deluded, good for nothing liberals, not to mention all those secret meetings we have about being power crazy commie socialists who want to control the world through taxes and fear and conspiracies about invisible see-oh-twos.

What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

As with other anxiety disorders the dominant symptoms are variable, but often there are complaints about the constant feeling of nervousness, trembling, muscle tension, sweating, palpitations, dizziness and discomfort in the epigastric region. There are often expressed fears that the patient or his relatives will soon get sick, or they have an accident, as well as various other excitement and apprehension. This disorder is more common in women and often associated with chronic environmental stress.

The patient should have the primary symptoms of anxiety most days for a period of at least several weeks, but usually a few months. These symptoms usually include:

dizziness, dry mouth, etc.)

Transient appearance (several days), other symptoms, particularly depression, does not rule out generalized anxiety disorder as principal diagnosis, but patient does nothave to meet the full criteria for depressive episode, phobic anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Panic Disorder: The Facts

Treatment of panic disorder, a consensus development conference

Panic disorder and anxiety in adolescence

The Medical Library Association encyclopedic guide to searching and finding health information on the Web

The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science