Legacy Healing Center Blog

Understanding Anxiety

A little bit of anxiety is a normal response to a stressful or dangerous situation, as it is the body’s way of signaling that action needs to be taken. This may be an anxiety disorder when anxiety begins to appear irrationally, with excessive fear without reason, interfering with work, close relationships, and social activities. Unfortunately, people with high anxiety often turn to available drugs to manage their anxiety, which can lead to addiction. Finding anxiety and addiction treatment in West Palm Beach becomes paramount when dependence sets in.

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Types of Anxiety Disorders

Different types of anxiety disorders include:

• Generalized anxiety disorder: a continuous sense of dread with no specific focus
• Social anxiety disorder: an unreasonable fear of interacting with others, causing fear of public places and crowds, and situations that make the individual feel out of control
• Panic disorder: episodes of overwhelming terror that give the individual an impending sense of doom, with physical symptoms including hyperventilation, nausea/vomiting, chest pain, choking sensation, sweating, and dizziness
• Specific phobias: a debilitating fear of an object, situation, or animal, with the individual going out of their way to avoid contact. Common phobias include claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), arachnophobia (fear of spiders), and acrophobia (fear of heights)
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: a preoccupation or feelings of obligation to complete a particular task, with distressing, obsessive thoughts and urges and repetitive behaviors (such as the belief that a person will be hurt if they do not turn a door lock several times or excessively cleaning a body part
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): a psychological response to a traumatic event including flashbacks, irritability, anger, insomnia, paranoia, and hypervigilance

There are short-term and long-term anxiety disorders. With a short-term disorder, the feelings of anxiety will resolve themselves once the stressor is removed. Some examples of this include acute stress after suffering a traumatic event or adjusting to a significant life change. In a long-term disorder, anxiety symptoms may remain for an extended period. These may include conditions like PTSD, agoraphobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and many others.

Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety

There are physical and psychological signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders that may include:

• Experiencing obsessive thoughts or ruminating on past experiences
• Having irrational feelings of fear, tension, uneasiness, restlessness, and irritability
• Feeling dizziness, headaches, muscle tension, fatigue
• Having trouble sleeping
• Experiencing gastrointestinal problems or frequent urination

The Connection Between Anxiety and Addiction

Many people with undiagnosed anxiety issues will use drugs or alcohol to cope with the symptoms. Attempts at self-medication can worsen the effects of an anxiety condition, causing a cycle of abuse that can lead to physical dependence on the substance. Drug or alcohol abuse can also trigger some latent mental health issues, which require anxiety and addiction treatment in West Palm Beach to overcome.

Dual Diagnosis Treatment for Anxiety and Substance Use Disorders

Dual diagnosis treatment is a type of treatment provided to people who have been diagnosed with both a substance use disorder and a co-occurring mental health issue. These two conditions are best dealt with together simultaneously, so the cycle of unhealthy coping mechanisms, using substances to mask symptoms, and ongoing hidden mental health disorders can be stopped, getting to the root of both issues at once.

At the Legacy Healing Center’s behavioral health center in West Palm Beach, we can help you address the contributing factors to your addiction like trauma and mental health disorders and the overall effect your addiction has had on your mental health through our dual diagnosis program. We provide a high level of care and addiction treatment programs to help you move past your addiction and regain control of your mental health through an integrated program that will help you heal your mind, body, and spirit. Contact Legacy Healing at 888.534.2295 today to learn more about our anxiety and addiction treatment in West Palm Beach. We can help you work through your anxiety disorder while addressing substance use issues at the same time. We are here to help.