The Loneliness of Anxiety
How Anxiety Contributes To A Sense of Disconnect As We Grasp For Belonging
by Anne Marie Vivienne
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I want to do.”
Everyone, even the most accomplished among us, experiences some level of anxiety––whether we feel worried or a dash of fear about an upcoming presentation, meeting, gathering, performance, or conversation––we all know that uncomfortable foreboding and worry. A small dose of anxiety now and then might help us focus on completing the task at hand, but, for some of us, worry and fear release a steady flow of cortisol that can end up shutting us down physically, emotionally, and mentally and leaves us disconnected and lonely.
At some point in our lives, many of us have experienced the spiraling of an anxious narrative that takes hold of our brains and lodges itself physically in our bodies––making us feel stuck and afraid. What is at the root of most of our anxiety? Turns out, it’s rooted in our fears of social rejection and isolation:
“Social rejection—or fearing it—is one of the most common causes of anxiety. Feelings of inclusion depend not so much on having frequent social contacts or numerous relationships as on how accepted we feel, even in just a few key relationships. Small wonder that we have a hardwired system that is alert to the threat of abandonment, separation, or rejection: these were once actual threats to life itself, though they are only symbolically so today. Still, when we hope to be a You, being treated like an It, as though we do not matter, carries a particularly harsh sting.”
We fear exclusion and dehumanization as much as we fear cancer, a natural disaster, or hunger. Like our physical hunger alerts us to our biological need for food, our fear of abandonment, separation, and rejection is still triggering us when we feel our social acceptance and value are on the line. The irony in modern society, where we can survive relatively independently, is that our social anxiety is creating disconnection and isolation rather than acting as an alarm system to keep us safe. When we feel lonely, we’re supposed to reach out to others.
However, as we worry about failing to belong, our anxiety might drive us to shut ourselves in or could subconsciously push others away:
“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”
Our biology evolved to protect us––and still does if we know how to recognize our anxiety and identify real versus perceived threats. When we own our anxiety, and investigate it with compassion, we can strengthen our relationships of belonging and connection. When we accept, welcome, and observe our anxiety, we own our pain and find ways to move through it in order to find healing and help others through empathy and compassion.
Anxiety Defined According to Experts, Healers, and Visionaries
Fear vs. Anxiety - Jeffrey Brantley, MD
In his book, Calming the Anxious Mind, Jeffrey Brantley, MD, explains that both fear and anxiety share the same feelings of dread and foreboding. However, fear has a clear and undeniable threat: it’s the feeling you experience when you find a lump in your breast, or you hear about an approaching tornado, or you slip near the edge of a cliff––these are all very real threats that create fear in us so that we will protect ourselves and take the necessary steps towards safety.
On the other hand,
“When the feelings of dread and foreboding are not so clearly associated with an identified danger or threat, they are called anxiety. Indeed, this difficulty or inability to identify exactly what you are anxious about is a hallmark of anxiety.
The word “anxiety” comes from the Latin word anxius, which means a condition of agitation and distress. With anxiety, this agitation and distress is felt deeply––in the mind and body––in the present moment. The fearful feeling is more internal and seems to be in response to something threatening but hazy, something vague or far away. You cannot identify the danger but feel the fear anyway.
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“People with anxiety have a problem dealing with distracting thoughts that have too much power. They can’t distinguish between a problem-solving thought and a nagging worry that has no benefit.”
Anxiety as Teacher
“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
How Anxiety Creates Barriers of Isolation
“Anxiety may manifest itself in your behavior. For example, you may avoid people and situations. You may develop elaborate rituals that must be performed before you can do any other activities. Or you may be bound by repetitive compulsions such as hand washing or door checking that interfere with the flow of daily life.”
When our anxiety becomes the driver, we exhaust ourselves with a fast-paced narrative heading nowhere. We know we don’t want to wear ourselves out, so we use what Attachment Experts call “protest behavior” to remove ourselves from the pain of the situation or the relationship. We stop going out with friends because we get overwhelmed with efforts of fitting in, or we avoid our partner thinking we can avoid the pain.
Self-compassion expert Dr. Kristin Neff reveals how the self-criticism inherent in anxiety disconnects people even when the possibility of closeness and connection is real:
“Because self-critics often come from unsupportive family backgrounds, they tend not to trust others and assume that those they care about will eventually try to hurt them. This creates a steady state of fear that causes problems in interpersonal interactions. For instance, research shows that highly self-critical people tend to be dissatisfied in their romantic relationships because they assume their partners are judging them as harshly as they judge themselves. The misperception of even fairly neutral statements as disparaging often leads to oversensitive reactions and unnecessary conflicts. This means that self-critics often undermine the closeness and supportiveness in relationships that they so desperately seek.”
You can further remove yourself from people and partners when you allow your anxiety to predict the worse and worry about the possibility of people's negative reactions. Your anxiety is a communication barrier––where neither you or your partner can really understand your true needs. People with secure attachment styles––rather than anxious or avoidant attachment styles––expect positive reactions from their partners, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy:
“If you’re anxious, when you start to feel something is bothering you in a relationship, you tend to quickly get flooded with negative emotions and think in extremes. Unlike your secure counterpart, you don’t expect your partner to respond positively but anticipate the opposite. You perceive the relationship as something fragile and unstable that can collapse at any moment...These thoughts and assumptions make it hard for you to express your needs effectively.
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In order to communicate clearly the needs and boundaries necessary for healthy relationships of belonging and connection, anxiety cannot steer your emotional, mental, and spiritual ships.
Remedies For Anxiety
There are endless, always accessible, remedies to remove the barriers of anxiety––it’s a practice that can be difficult, but, with courage, can be reclaimed with peace of mind and love. Below are some insights to how we can approach and work with our anxiety:
Self-Compassion
“It can take a lot of courage––plus intentional self-compassion and real skill––to stop, pay attention, and step back from the constant stream of sensations, memories and stories flowing through you at any given moment. And paying attention more closely means that you must also acknowledge any pain you may be feeling (remembered or otherwise) and perhaps learn to practice self-compassion and self-care more deeply.”
Acceptance
“Painful feelings are, by their very nature, temporary. They will weaken over time as long as we don’t prolong or amplify them through resistance or avoidance. The only way to eventually free ourselves from debilitating pain, therefore, is to be with it as it is. The only way out is through. ”
Integrity
“If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
Humor
“My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened”
Helping
“If we come to the understanding that we are needed and commit ourselves to doing something about our own pain and the pain around us, we will find that we are on a journey. A warrior is always on a journey, and a main feature of that journey is fear. This fear is not simply something to be lamented, avoided, or vanquished. It is something to be examined, something to make a relationship with...If we choose to take notice of the actual experience of fear, whether it’s just a queasy feeling in our stomach or actual terror, whether it’s a subtle level of discomfort or mind-numbing dramatic anxiety, we can smile at it, believe it or not. It could be a literal smile or a metaphor for coming to know fear, turning toward fear, touching fear. In that case, rather than fear setting off a chain reaction where you’re trying to protect yourself from it, it becomes a source of tenderness. We experience our vulnerability, but we don’t feel we have to harden ourselves in response. This makes it possible for us to help ourselves and to help others.”
Physics
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest––a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.”
Mindfulness
“When having your own thoughts and feelings of being separate from others––no matter what encounter evokes them––what if you could look more deeply and investigate these thoughts and feelings? What if you could see for yourself whether such thoughts and feelings accurately describe how things ultimately and truly are or if they are only an “optical delusion” as Einstein maintains? You could investigate Einstein’s statement. It would take some work and some time and commitment, but you could do it, because you already have what you need. It is another way that we humans are more alike than we are different. We each have the capacity to be mindful.”
“A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us.”