The Anxiety Snowball - What Causes and Messages Contribute to Anxiety?

If you've ever wondered, why am I anxious? What's causing me to be anxious? I don't even know why I feel this anxious. Some of these things might be stuff you can trace back and find out that they contribute to it in some way. Obviously, you're not going to have a perfect answer that has the exact right proportions of what is causing any particular flavor of anxiety that you might experience, because there are many factors.

The factors can fall into some genetic predisposition. So just kind of in your biological makeup and wiring of having a physical human body, there can be some genetics that play into a higher opportunity. Let's say, for anxiety and given the right environment where there are stressors or trauma things that were not optimal, it might flip the switch and say, okay, you already had a predisposition genetically, and now the environment is turning the switch on, and now you struggle with it.

It also could be strictly your environment. It could be that you've had a traumatic experience. You've experienced something that felt unsafe, that felt life threatening, a situation that you felt trapped in, or that you couldn't get out of. It could be an emotional trauma. It could be a physical trauma. It could be like a car accident, or it could be verbal abuse, people calling you names, or bullying you experienced. It can be not having enough of what you needed. It can be being overly protected and now wondering how to stay safe. It can be based on environmental factors. So maybe there are things in your environment that are not optimal and they're causing stress and anxiety. It could be because there's a lack of something and you're concerned about being able to be safe and to have enough of what you need.

It can be physical symptoms, so it can be related to perhaps when you have a cold coming on or PMS or if you've been under a lot of stress. As far as physically, it can really just be something that is more likely to kind of be the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. It sets it over the edge. And you might feel that for a certain time frame or season could be because of a medical condition. It could be because of the side effects of medications or the different symptoms from medical conditions.

So, there are all kinds of things that can cause anxiety as far as the underlying causes, but there's often not just one. It's often a perfect storm. It may be one, but it may be other things. And the problem with anxiety is that sometimes it breeds anxiety. So, it may have started off as one thing, like, let's say, childhood bullying, but then it might turn into something else, like being insecure of how you perform. And so there you can't perform in the school play. Well, it may have started with bullying, but then it might turn into insecurity and then anxiety about something else. Sometimes it can just change based on the situation, but the anxiety is still the same underlying thread of, will people hurt me or disapprove or am I going to be treated poorly? And that makes me anxious.

The messages that the anxiety situations send to you may be similar across different environments. So, for instance, if you're feeling like you're not good enough, you might start that way. Because maybe a parent compared you to a sibling or to a classmate and said, why can't you be more like them? Right? So then when you go out for the team and you didn't make it, that message stayed with you. See, I must not be good enough. I'm not good enough to be chosen. I have to perform a certain way or act a certain way or look a certain way. That underlying message can be what is the root of a lot of the negative self-talk and therefore the insecurity and then the fear of what that's going to cause and what might happen that might replicate that pain from the past, and that can set you on edge. So, it's something that can snowball in that way.

It can also snowball in that if you feel anxious, you're more likely to be alert for anything that could reinforce that anxiety because you want to prevent it from happening. So if I get concerned that I'm about to be bit by a dog because that happened in the past, then when I'm taking a walk through the neighborhood, if I see a dog, I might start walking on the other side of the road. Well, because I walked on the other side of the road, my mind might start going and go, oh, see, that dog is going to get me. And then maybe it's like, oh, if that dog's going to get me, maybe I should look on this side of the road. Maybe there's a dog here that's going to come out of nowhere. And then the next thing you know, you've stopped taking your neighborhood walks, or you're walking down the middle of the street and people are like, why isn't she walking on the sidewalk?

Or it just can snowball into, okay, if I feel that uneasy, then maybe it's true. Maybe the feelings are telling me there really is a threat. Even if there are no dogs in your neighborhood, or the dogs are all chained up, or they're all tame, or they all have fences around them, your logic goes offline when you are anxious, and therefore you might feel that there's a very real threat, even when the likelihood of that very real threat isn't found in reality. Sometimes just the awareness of being anxious and having your system kind of on high alert for, uh-oh, I'm anxious, that means trouble is coming. And then looking for trouble and continuing that anxious cycle. Oh, trouble must be coming because I feel it. Uh=oh, I feel it...trouble must be coming. It can be a vicious cycle.

So, we need to reign ourselves in and tell ourselves more helpful information. Such as, even though I feel afraid that I'm going to be bit by a dog, I know that there are no dogs on this street, so I can feel it and still take my walk, or even though I feel like there's a dog going to attack me from every side, I know that only one of these neighbors has a dog and that that dog is tame and they're on the left side of the street. So just to be sure, and because I'm uncomfortable, I'll walk on the right. I know that this isn't a realistic threat; it just feels like one, so I'll still take my walk.

We have to tell ourselves the truth, which can sound something like, hey, nervous system, I know you feel, however you feel scared, nervous, insecure, afraid, whatever and I understand that. Here is how I can help, by telling you the truth: there isn't danger, even though it feels that way, or the danger is not very likely, or let's be reasonable here, we can do a little bit of protection, but we don't have to do everything because that's out of proportion.

If you can calm the automatic sympathetic nervous system that makes you feel like there's a threat, your logic can come on. Therefore, you'll be seeing things clearer because you'll be able to blend what it feels like with logical information so you can make a much better calculated estimate as to how much of a threat you're in and what you're going to do about it. Being aware that anxiety can breed more anxious feelings is often a key that can help you to say, I see what's happening here. I'm not really spiraling because there's all this threat or such a high level of threat. I'm spiraling because I noticed the feelings of anxiety and I negatively attributed, I mean, I accidentally attributed them to actual threat and it was just feelings and they weren't indicative of actually what the level of threat is.

If you could realize that it might help your system to go, oh, so I was kind of continuing the cycle. If I can tell myself the truth, then I won't feel as nervous, which will make me not think that I am in as much danger because my logic will be able to come on and help me to understand the level of threat is not as intense as I had thought. So, I hope that's helpful.

As you look into dealing with anxiety further, I hope you'll check out the upcoming episodes. I'm going to talk more about it, but for now, I just want to remind you that if you need help with anxiety, feel free to reach out for a next step discovery call. Just go to Mental Health for Christian Women and hop on my schedule. There's a button there where you can pull up my schedule and find a time for a free 15-minute consult. I'd love to hear what's going on with you and see how I could possibly help. Take care.