subject: Who Suffers From Anxiety Attacks? [print this page] People you would never suspect suffer from anxiety and anxiety attacks. In fact, anxiety is such a widespread disorder that virtually anyone can suffer from it. Your uncle, your grandmother, your sister, your neighbor, your best friend or your brother can all have attacks. The reason you may not know these people close to you are suffering is because anxiety is one of those "sweep it under the carpet" disorders. Most people don't like to talk about it or admit they suffer from anxiety attacks.
There seems to be a stigma to anxiety attacks, especially if you are a public person like Kim Bassinger. Ms. Bassinger had a long, difficult struggle with anxiety attacks and kept it a secret for most of her life. You would never suspect it seeing her confidence up on the "silver screen" though would you? In fact, she has spoken out frequently about her battle with anxiety attacks in the hope that this may raise awareness and treatment of this terrifying disorder. She is certainly very brave to expose this portion of her private life like this.
It is believed that anxiety can be an inherited disorder, even though your mother or father may not show the outward signs of it. Remember, people feel this is an embarrasing disorder. It can make the sufferer believe they are, or are going, crazy. However, not every person who has experienced an anxiety attack will develop a full blown anxiety disorder, but everyone with an anxiety disorder did start out with an anxiety attack.
Here is an interesting statistic for you. According to the NIMH (National Institute for Mental Health), approximately 2.4 million adult Americans suffer from some form of anxiety or panic disorder and it is twice as common in women as it is in men. Now we know why our mothers worried so much.
The major reason for not understanding what they are experiencing or that they are suffering from an anxiety disorder may be attributed to the fact that many cases actually began in adolescence. Therefore a child may not be able to explain what they are feeling when compared to the ability of an adult.
The key here is to spend time listening to your children. You would not want them to endure a childhood full of emotional pain and not even know the reason why.
One more interesting fact to be aware of is that anxiety attacks don't only happen when a person is awake. They can and often do happen while you are sleeping. How scary do you think that would be to wake up to?
