Is Your Anxiety An Illness Or A Behaviour?

Healing is hard, so it’s important to know what you’re up against

In the last few years we’ve made huge strides in recognising, diagnosing and talking about Mental Illness. That has to be a good thing. It helps us find the help we need and it helps us heal.

The medicalisation of mental health has been, and continues to be, an enormous battle. One fought by brave individuals, charities, researchers and doctors. It’s taken many of us out of the world of suffering in silence and helped us find our voice.

Thanks to those efforts we now have better access to drugs, to therapy, to time off work when we need it. There is still a long way to go before mental health is considered as important across society as physical health, but still, we are making big strides.

However, the more progress we make, the more people seem to be suffering from mental health issues. It’s an epidemic, we’re told. So why is that?

There are a million theories — from climate anxiety to social media addiction, and I suspect there is some truth in almost all of them. But I want to focus on one that really worries me. One that may be stopping you getting better.

We anxiety sufferers (and I am very much one of you!) are increasingly calling out our condition as a mental health problem. We are encouraged to confront it as such. And it can be very reassuring — it helps us see it as any other illness. Something which isn’t our fault. Something which deserves care and sympathy. Those are undoubtably good things.

What if we’re labelling it all wrong? And what if that makes us treat it as something that needs a cure? What if it turns us towards doctors and pills we don’t really need? What if it makes us feel more trapped than we need to?

It’s not a stretch. The anxious mind is one which is geared to find the downside of almost anything. So it is bound to pick up on the negative elements of being diagnosed with a mental health issue.

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