Anxiety Types - Different types of anxiety!

What are the types of anxiety disorders?

There are several types of anxiety disorders and each type has its specific symptoms, characteristics and complications. The common types are panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder, phobias and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) so let's take a deeper look at each type for a better understanding.

• Panic disorder: the sufferer has feelings of panic and intense fear that strikes suddenly and without a warning sign, this severe condition is called "panic attack" which has many symptoms like palpitations, sweating, breathing difficulties and the feeling that the person is having a heart attack or "going crazy".
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): the sufferers of this type of anxiety disorders tend to repeat the same act many times with no obvious reason, the constant thoughts and fears make the person not sure if he is doing things correctly and properly so he would perform an act repeatedly which make him feel tired and exhausted.

For example the patient would close the door over and over even if he or she knows that the door is closed but the fear of thieves or other phobic thoughts makes the patient want to check the door every time, and many examples of this strange behavior could be listed. The constant thoughts are called obsessions and the repeated acts are called compulsions.

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):  this condition is caused by a traumatic and terrifying situation that occurred in the past, such as a sexual or physical assault, bad accidents that may cause some horrible scenes, the death of a loved, war and its violence or a natural disaster... those past events leave their scars on the patients and lead him to suffer from frightening thoughts and memories of these situations that could be even worse than the event itself.
• Social anxiety disorder: this disorder involves worries and fears of daily social situations like meeting people, going to a coffee shop or a restaurant or walking a crowded street... the patient is worried about being judged or being embarrassed in front of other people. This social phobia may lead the patient to withdraw the social life or refuse to leave the house which is similar to agoraphobia (fear of open spaces).
• Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): it is an unrealistic worry and excessive tension for no obvious reason; this type creates a state of constant anxiety even if there is nothing to be mentioned to provoke this worry or worth the trouble thinking that much.
• phobias: it is an intense fear of a situation, person, animal, object or anything else that would make the person very scared and terrified, the common phobias are the fear of snake, heights, spiders and a lot more… it is called a phobia because the level of the fear is not appropriate to the situation. The phobias may lead the person to avoid the situation and run or have a panic attack if he or she is face to face with the phobia stimulator.

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