Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder is characterized by six months or more of chronic, exaggerated worry and tension. It is unfounded or much more severe than the normal anxiety most people experience. People with this disorder usually expect the worst; they worry excessively about money, health, family, or work, even when there are no signs of trouble. ... Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a long-term illness that can last for many years before it is even diagnosed and treated. ... Individuals have experience anxiety throughout the ages. Yet anxiety was not clearly defined or isolated as a separate entity by psychiatrists or psychologists until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For many years, anxiety disorders were viewed as purely psychological or purely biological in nature. ... The major symptoms of GAD contain worry, anxiety, and tension. ... These are depression, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. Generalized Anxiety Disorder is distinguished from other anxiety disorders mainly by the absence of certain symptoms. ... The disorder may begin in childhood or adolescence, but onset is not uncommon after age 20. Excessive thinking and dwelling on the “what ifs” characterized this anxiety disorder. As a result, the person feels there’s no way out of the vicious cycle of anxiety and worry, and then becomes depressed about life and the state of anxiety they find themselves in.