Why Is My Anxiety So Bad? When Coping Skills Aren’t Enough
You may already know what you’re “supposed” to do when you feel anxious.
Take a deep breath. Go for a walk. Meditate. Get more sleep. Challenge the negative thought. Try not to overthink.
And sometimes those things help.
But what happens when you are doing all of that and you still feel anxious?
Maybe your mind is constantly running. Maybe you expect something to go wrong even when everything seems fine. Maybe you feel tense, irritable, exhausted, or unable to relax. You may even find yourself wondering, “Why am I like this? Nothing is happening right now.”
That is a question I hear often in therapy.
Sometimes anxiety is not simply about what is happening today. It can be connected to what your brain and nervous system learned from what happened before.
Anxiety Doesn’t Always Make Sense on the Surface
Anxiety is your body’s warning system. It is designed to help you recognize danger and prepare to respond.
The problem is that the alarm system can become overly sensitive.
You might intellectually know that you are safe, but your body doesn’t always respond as though you are safe. You may notice a racing heart, tight chest, stomach problems, difficulty sleeping, muscle tension, irritability, or a constant feeling that something is wrong.
The National Institute of Mental Health notes that anxiety can involve excessive worry, feeling restless or on edge, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep problems.
And anxiety doesn’t always come with an obvious reason.
Sometimes a client will tell me, “I know I’m overreacting, but I can’t stop it.”
That distinction matters.
Knowing that your reaction doesn’t make sense doesn’t necessarily make the reaction disappear.
When Anxiety Is Connected to Something Deeper
For some people, anxiety develops around current stressors. Work, relationships, finances, parenting, health concerns, or major life changes can all create real anxiety.
For others, there is a deeper history behind the reaction.
Perhaps you grew up in a home where you never knew what mood someone would be in. Maybe you experienced criticism, bullying, rejection, abuse, a frightening event, or another situation where you did not feel safe or in control.
Sometimes the original experience doesn’t even seem significant anymore.
You may think, “That happened years ago. I’ve moved on.”
But then something happens in the present—a tone of voice, conflict with your partner, being ignored, making a mistake, feeling rejected, or losing control of a situation—and your reaction feels much bigger than the situation itself.
That doesn’t mean you are weak or dramatic.
It may mean that something about the present situation is activating an older pattern of fear or protection.
Traumatic experiences can affect people emotionally and physically, and some people continue to experience anxiety, avoidance, sleep problems, physical symptoms, or heightened alertness long after the original event. The National Institute of Mental Health’s information on coping with traumatic events provides additional information about these responses.
Why Coping Skills Sometimes Aren’t Enough
Coping skills are important. I teach them in therapy, and there are times when breathing, grounding, mindfulness, movement, and other strategies can make a significant difference.
But coping with anxiety and understanding why anxiety keeps showing up are not always the same thing.
If you are constantly trying to calm yourself down without understanding what keeps setting off the alarm, you can end up spending a tremendous amount of energy managing symptoms.
That can become exhausting.
You may begin avoiding certain situations, people, conversations, or experiences because you are afraid of how anxious you will feel.
Over time, your world can become smaller.
If you’re interested in learning more about treatment for anxiety, you can read more about anxiety counseling and individual therapy at Natalia Savage Counseling Center.
The goal of therapy isn’t simply to teach you how to tolerate anxiety forever. Depending on what is contributing to your symptoms, therapy may also involve understanding and addressing the experiences, beliefs, and patterns underneath the anxiety.
What Does Trauma Have to Do With Anxiety?
Not everyone with anxiety has trauma, and anxiety can have many causes.
But when anxiety is connected to unresolved traumatic or distressing experiences, trauma-focused therapy may be helpful.
This is one reason I use EMDR therapy in my work with clients.
EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a structured psychotherapy approach originally developed for trauma. It has also been studied and used clinically for anxiety, panic, phobias, and other concerns.
The purpose isn’t to make you repeatedly tell the story of everything that has ever happened to you.
Instead, therapy focuses on identifying the experiences, situations, beliefs, or triggers that may be contributing to your current distress and determining what needs to be addressed in treatment.
You Don’t Have to Know Exactly Why You’re Anxious Before Starting Therapy
One of the things I want clients to know is that you don’t have to walk into therapy already understanding yourself.
You don’t have to know which childhood experience caused your anxiety.
You don’t have to know whether what happened to you “counts” as trauma.
And you don’t have to have everything figured out before asking for help.
That is part of what therapy is for.
Together, we can look at what you’re experiencing now, when it happens, what seems to trigger it, how it affects your relationships and daily life, and whether there are older experiences that may be contributing to the pattern.
Sometimes the first step isn’t getting rid of anxiety.
It’s understanding why your mind and body keep sounding the alarm.
When Should You Consider Therapy for Anxiety?
Consider talking with a mental health professional if anxiety is:
- interfering with your relationships
- affecting your sleep
- making it difficult to concentrate or work
- causing you to avoid situations you want to participate in
- creating frequent physical symptoms
- leading to panic attacks
- making you constantly worry about things that haven’t happened
- affecting your confidence or ability to enjoy your life
- continuing despite your efforts to manage it on your own
You don’t have to wait until anxiety becomes unbearable to seek help.
Anxiety Therapy in Tampa and the Surrounding Area
At Natalia Savage Counseling Center, I work with adults experiencing anxiety, trauma, relationship difficulties, grief, and other emotional challenges.
My approach is individualized because anxiety doesn’t look the same for everyone. For some clients, traditional therapeutic approaches and coping strategies are appropriate. For others, particularly when anxiety is connected to unresolved trauma, trauma-focused therapy such as EMDR may be part of the treatment plan.
If you’re in Tampa, Westchase, Oldsmar, Safety Harbor, or the surrounding area and you’re tired of simply trying to manage your anxiety, therapy can give you an opportunity to understand what is underneath it and work toward meaningful change.
You don’t have to figure it all out before you reach out.