How To Stop Worrying

STUDYING IN HER DORMITORY ROOM alone one evening at the University of Victoria, Canada, student Jill Taylor suddenly felt a tightening in her stomach and found it difficult to breathe. “My heart was racing, my vision tunnelled,” she says. “I was scared. I didn’t know what was happening to me.” It was November 2006 and the then second-year university student phoned for an appointment with her doctor the next day.

- Sydney Loney

He diagnosed her with “test anxiety”, and because she hadn’t been sleeping or eating well, he prescribed sleeping pills. Having a diagnosis—a name she could give to her frightening episodes of anxiety— and the medication helped Jill.

For the next few years, she pushed herself through university, graduation, getting a job, falling in love and getting married. For a time, things seemed to be on a more even keel. But she continued to suffer unmanaged and frequent anxiety attacks—most often when faced with tests of any kind, talking on the phone, and thoughts of the future.

Then Jill fell into a serious depression brought on by her continued and unaddressed anxiety. She could no longer function: she quit her job, stopped going out and retreated into a shell.

Finally, urged by her wife to seek help, Jill went to see her family doctor in Vancouver where she now lived. Her doctor referred her to a psychiatrist at the Mood Disorders Clinic of British Columbia. There, finally, in June 2014, Jill received an accurate diagnosis—she suffered from General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). With this diagnosis in hand, her doctor prescribed some anti-anxiety medication and encouraged her to find a qualified person with whom she could work to help manage her disorder.

GAD IS A CONDITION characterised by persistent, excessive worry—even when there’s nothing concrete to worry about. “People with GAD attempt to plan for every eventuality, all of the time,” says Dr Melisa Robichaud, a psychologist in Vancouver. “It’s cognitively exhausting.” It can be physically taxing, too, with symptoms ranging from sleep problems, irritability and difficulty maintaining concentration to restlessness or agitation.