16 Things People With Anxiety Issues Hate Hearing From Others
Anxiety affects about 40 million Americans each year, and can cause ceaseless feelings of fear and uncertainty. With that suffering can come comments that are more hurtful than helpful to people with anxiety issues. While they usually come with the best intentions, a lack of understanding from the commenter can make panic attacks more challenging.
To help someone with anxiety issues cope, here are some specific phrases to avoid.
1) “Oh, I’ve been anxious before.”
Being anxious about a big test or an interview is very different from an anxiety attack. While one is expected (or it should be, at least), the other can bowl a person over without warning.
Author Brandie Wagers explained in an article that, for her, a sudden burst of anxiety is “comparable to what you would feel if a herd of stampeding buffalo was headed right toward you” out of nowhere.
For those with no control over their anxiety, saying you’ve been anxious before is not a good comparison.
2) “Calm down.”
The problem with anxiety and panic disorders is that you can’t simply calm down. There’s no switch to turn off the feelings automatically, and finding the ability to relax on command isn’t easy for most people. For those with a disorder it’s even more difficult.
Even though you might have good intentions in telling someone to keep calm, it can put them under more stress and pressure – the last thing they need at the time.
3) “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
The truth is, something you view as trivial or small may not be so small in a person with an anxiety disorder’s world. This comment is often meant to be positive and upbeat, but by saying it you may diminish something that’s a much bigger problem to another person.
For someone with anxiety issues, there is no “small stuff.”
4) “Just do it.”
When someone with anxiety is facing a fear, so-called tough love may be the last thing they need. Depending on the type of phobia or disorder, panic can strike someone at any time.
Try practicing empathy rather than telling someone to “suck it up.”
5) “Everything is going to be fine.”
While this comment is overall supportive, those with anxiety issues don’t react to comforting words in the same way others might. Telling someone with anxiety that “everything will be fine” doesn’t do much, because while it may be logical, anxiety on the level of a disorder is anything but logical.
Reassurance like this can be a bad method, because the person may believe it for a moment, but then doubt can creep in, creating a vicious cycle.
6) “Did I do something wrong?”
When someone is constantly suffering from anxiety, it can sometimes feel like your actions are helping to set them off. Keith Humphreys, a professor psychiatry at Stanford University, explains that panic and anxiety disorders stem from something larger than just one instance.
Realize that it isn’t about you, and don’t cause more stress by constantly questioning the sufferer.
7) “Maybe you just need a drink.”
While having a cocktail could take the edge of chronic anxiety for a time, the problem could be made worse. After all, alcohol is a downer, and giving a downer to someone with anxiety likely won’t make it better. It could make the problem go away for a few hours and then rebound, or it could simply serve to make the problem immediately worse.
At the worst, it could lead to alcoholism.
8) “Just think about something else.”
If they could, they would. When someone is experiencing an anxiety attack, they can only concentrate on one thing – the attack and whatever triggered it. If it is a situation, event or an object, that is all they can focus on.
Chances are, they would love to follow your advice, but aren’t able to at that moment.
9) “I don’t see the big deal.”
In an hour, they might not either. But for that moment, or that 20 minutes, the problem they are anxious about is a very big deal, even if no one else sees it that way.
Rather than dismissing the problem, try to understand it, and show empathy for the person dealing with anxiety.
10) “Really? You’re worried about THAT?”
Chances are, it won’t make sense to you why that particular thought, object or situation is upsetting. It’s even possible that the person with anxiety doesn’t understand why it’s so upsetting. But it’s still there, and needs to be worked through, rather than dismissed.
Again, empathy is your friend in this situation.
11) “Why don’t you just pray about it?”
As Wagers wrote, “No offense to any deity, but I need a physical person at this moment.”
For many people, praying won’t help at the time. Instead, they need someone physically present with whom they can talk and interact with to work through their anxiety.
12) “You don’t need medicine for that.”
Would you say this to someone with depression, diabetes, a thyroid disorder or some other ailment beyond their control? If you wouldn’t say it to them, don’t say it to someone with anxiety issues.
You can’t will your anxiety away, just like you cannot will diabetes or cancer away.
13) “It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong with you.”
It may not look like it, but that’s because anxiety is not a physical disorder. It isn’t like chicken pox, a broken arm or an amputation. Anxiety is internal and many of those who suffer from it have learned to adapt and not let it show through in their everyday life, if at all possible.
Someone calmly typing at their desk or sitting in class may be having an attack.
14) “Just get a hold of yourself.”
Just like the words, “Calm down,” this phrase is also hurtful. Anxiety isn’t something that can be switched off, considering the person experiencing it didn’t turn the switch on in the first place. Some people also think that anxiety is an attention issue and it isn’t a real problem.
It is.
15) “Didn’t we already talk about this?”
Chances are, if you are close to someone with anxiety, you have asked them this question. Yes, you have talked about it before, but to them there was nothing determined, creating even more anxiety.
Wagers wrote, “I need you to understand that unless we come to some kind of definitive answer there will always be some anxiety left.”
Even if there is resolution of a specific trigger, the brain and body can get used to responding to general stress in a particular way – or there might not even be a trigger that can be determined.
16) “Maybe some discipline would help.”
Anxiety isn’t just an adult problem. It’s also one that many children suffer from, but is chalked up to bad parenting, or the idea that the child needs a spanking. A child freaking out in a store and having a major fit could genuinely be incapable of controlling the fit no matter how much they, or their parent, wants to.
Rather than judging, offer to help the parent or, at the very least, don’t interfere.
Most of these comments are said with good intent and the hope that they will be uplifting. However, many of them show a lack of understanding for what the person is going through. Rather than trying to cheer them up or telling them to get over it, help those with anxiety issues through their problem by being empathetic and listening.
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