Why Do I Feel So Worried and Afraid?

Anxiety’s mission is to steal your focus and fill it with worry and fear.

A brain with a circular arrow around it describing how thoughts, emotions and behavior are related.

Anxious thoughts typically appear as images. The worst things you can imagine.

Your Vulnerabilities
Being Helpless
Panicking
In Danger
Threatened

You may be saying to yourself

“What if. . .”
“Something bad is going to happen”

These thoughts may be distorted in logic

Catastrophizing
Fortune Telling
Personalizing
Labeling

Mood, feelings, and emotions: they are all the same.

Your thoughts increase your emotional arousal.

You may notice feeling

Nervous
Anxious
Worried
Panicked
Afraid
Fearful

These emotions may feel uncomfortable

You may struggle to manage these feelings.

You feel the sensation of your emotions within your body and mind

The physical sensations may look like

Shallow Breathing
Rapid Heart Rate
Uncontrolled Sweating
Nausea
Muscle Tension
Fluctuations in Weight
Changes in Appetite
Strong Urges to Move

The psychological sensations may be

Irritability
Difficulty Concentrating
Repetitive Thinking
Racing Thoughts
Dissociation

Due to these internal processes, your behavior will naturally align with how you feel.

Behavior and actions are one and the same.

With severe anxiety, your behavior tends to focus on always being safe and avoiding situations that would trigger unpleasant emotions.

This may look like

Limiting Activities
Easily Startled
Avoiding People, Places, Things
Staying Home
Always Being with Someone
Needing Reassurance
Using Drugs or Alcohol to Relieve Emotional Discomfort

How Can Therapy Help?

Therapy can help you identify distorted thoughts that are contributing to the fear and vulnerability. Treatment will focus on exploring the reality of these thoughts and developing more balanced ways of thinking.
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Therapy will also explore how avoidance is depriving you of experiences and counterintuitively increasing your anxiety level.

Treatment will focus on reducing avoidance through carefully increasing your exposure to the anxiety so that it is no longer worrisome.

Many people seeking counseling begin to feel relief within a few sessions. Don’t hesitate to give us a try today.

Request Appointment

Learn More About Depression

17.3 million American adults suffered from a major depressive episode in 2017

Depression is anxiety’s best friend. Sometimes they can show up together.

It is normal to feel some sadness and depression in response to life transitions, loss, stress, and setbacks. These emotions make sense given these situations. For many people, these emotions lift after some time, and they’re able to move forward. However, for some, the depression lingers and never seems to go away.

Source: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml

1 in 3 people will experience an episode of depression in their lifetime.

If your feelings of sadness have lasted two weeks or longer, this may indicate a depressive disorder.

Source: https://thiswayup.org.au/learning-hub/depression-explained/

Why Do I Feel So Sad and Worthless?

Depression’s mission is to help you build a negative self-image and fill your mind with self-doubt and disappointment.

Thoughts help you understand the experiences you go through and provide you with a narrative to describe your experience

Depressed thoughts appear as negative thoughts, negative statements, and fixed beliefs

These beliefs influence how you view

Yourself
Your Future Outlook
Experiences in Your Environment

You may be saying to yourself

“I can’t enjoy anything”
“I always mess up”
“Nobody cares”
“I’ll always feel this way”
“I’m a failure”
“I’m no good”
“I’d be better off dead”
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(Remember, anxious thoughts appear more as images)

These thoughts may be distorted in logic

Overgeneralizing
All-or-Nothing Thinking
Jumping to Conclusions
Magnifying
Minimizing
Personalizing

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, reach out for help, call 911, or go to your local emergency room.

All your thoughts increase your emotional arousal

With depression, you may notice feeling

Sad
Lonely
Flat
Irritable
Guilt
Shame
Helpless
Hopeless
Worthless

These emotions can feel impossible to manage and immensely uncomfortable.

You feel the sensation of your emotions within your body and mind

The physical sensations may look like

Low Energy
Lethargic
Tired
Loss of Sleep
Sleeping Too Much
Fluctuations in Weight
Changes in Appetite
Loss of Interest in Sex

The psychological sensations may be

Slowed Thinking
Poor Concentration
Difficulty with Decision Making and Problem Solving
Apathy
Brain Fog
Little Interest in Pleasurable Activities

If you are experiencing 5 of these physical and psychological symptoms over a 2-week period, then you may be experiencing an episode of depression.

Due to these internal processes, your behavior will naturally align with how you feel.

Behavior and actions are one and the same.

With severe depression, your behavior tends to focus on isolating yourself from the world

This isolation leads to inactivity and a lack of participating in life.

Further worsening your depression.

This may look like

Not Participating in Activities
Withdrawing from Life
Doing Very Little
Staying in Bed
Not Answering the Phone or Door
Self-Harm
Using Drugs or Alcohol to Relieve Emotional Discomfort

How Can Therapy Help?

Therapy can help you identify distorted thoughts that are contributing to feeling sad and worthless. Treatment will focus on exploring the reality of these thoughts and developing more balanced ways of thinking.
‍

Therapy will explore how to set realistic goals, increasing activities and building self-esteem through acceptance, gratitude, mindfulness, and commitment.

Therapy aims to help you identify your own distorted thoughts in order to change how you feel so that sadness does not linger when overcoming difficult times.

Interested in Learning More about Depression?

40 million Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year.

Why Do I Feel So Worried and Afraid?

Anxious thoughts typically appear as images. The worst things you can imagine.

You may be saying to yourself

These thoughts may be distorted in logic

Mood, feelings, and emotions: they are all the same.

You may notice feeling

These emotions may feel uncomfortable

You feel the sensation of your emotions within your body and mind

The physical sensations may look like

The psychological sensations may be

Due to these internal processes, your behavior will naturally align with how you feel.

Behavior and actions are one and the same.

This may look like

How Can Therapy Help?

Many people seeking counseling begin to feel relief within a few sessions. Don’t hesitate to give us a try today.

17.3 million American adults suffered from a major depressive episode in 2017

1 in 3 people will experience an episode of depression in their lifetime.

Why Do I Feel So Sad and Worthless?

Thoughts help you understand the experiences you go through and provide you with a narrative to describe your experience

These beliefs influence how you view

You may be saying to yourself

These thoughts may be distorted in logic

All your thoughts increase your emotional arousal

With depression, you may notice feeling

These emotions can feel impossible to manage and immensely uncomfortable.

You feel the sensation of your emotions within your body and mind

The physical sensations may look like

The psychological sensations may be

Due to these internal processes, your behavior will naturally align with how you feel.

Behavior and actions are one and the same.

With severe depression, your behavior tends to focus on isolating yourself from the world

This isolation leads to inactivity and a lack of participating in life.

Further worsening your depression.

This may look like

How Can Therapy Help?

Many people seeking counseling begin to feel relief within a few sessions. Don’t hesitate to give us a try today.

Request Call