Anxiety disorders—particularly those that have to do with social situations—are often divided into two categories: specific and generalized. A specific anxiety disorder has anxiety symptoms that are triggered by very particular stimuli, or the thought of particular stimuli. For example, a person may become very anxious at the prospect of having to get up on a stage. On the other hand, the disorder may be more generalized, in which case the generalized anxiety disorder symptoms cannot easily be traced to a particular trigger.
• Generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, is basically when a person tends to worry far too much about many everyday things, even when it is not likely that something is about to go wrong. The person always seems to be expecting something bad to happen. However, this is more than just simple pessimism. The person will be experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety and depression as well. These can include headaches, insomnia, nausea, muscle pains, and skin rash, as well has having a hard time breathing and swallowing. In addition, it must be noted that a brief onset of the symptoms is not going to be enough to induce an authentic diagnosis of GAD. You should have the symptoms for at least six months, and experience your irrational worry for the majority of days over that time. The waiting game might be a terrible experience for people who think they might have GAD, but there are reasons to make sure that a diagnosis is not being made prematurely. After all, pulling out drastic treatment measures for what turns out to be a passing problem may also damage the patient’s physical and mental health.
• Anxiety symptoms similar to those of generalized anxiety disorder may manifest themselves due to other, more physiological or pharmacological causes. For example, they may be the result of drug abuse, or may be side effects of drugs a patient is taking for another problem. The body itself may have a physiological problem (such as hormonal imbalance) that leads to the appearance of the symptoms. These other possibilities must not be ignored, lest a misdiagnosis occur.
You might think that anxiety disorders just mean a very persistent, grave sort of nervousness—especially if you do not have a disorder yourself. However, they and the attendant anxiety symptoms can be very serious and scary—even terrifying. We refer here to phobias, which are classified under anxiety disorders, partly because sufferers experience man of the anxiety symptoms, but often with more gravity. People who have extreme difficulty socializing might actually have social phobia, which can cripple their attempts to make practical networks, and even to find romance.
• In brief, a phobia is an unreasonable terror of some specific thing. People can be scared of snakes, heights, the dark, etc. Phobias are not just annoying fears that give you nightmares and make you nervous. The can have a huge practical impact on your life. Let us take the case of actress Olivia Hussey, whose career looked very promising after she starred in Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. However, she had agoraphobia, and the symptoms of anxiety were so bad that she had a hard time doing what was expected of a young “star.”
• If you have social phobia, do not by any means convince yourself that many types of social interaction are forever beyond your reach. A phobia can be treated in a variety of ways. Some people prefer cognitive therapy, which involves, among other things, turning rational thinking on irrational feelings and impulses. The professional helping you might ask you to examine the reasons behind your fears, and the reasons behind your reasons. Still, this might not be enough to get rid of the root behind your anxiety symptoms. Elements of behavioral psychology may be introduced into your treatment so that you learn to associate the object of your fear with positive stimuli. In terms of social phobia, support groups can also be very helpful. Dates and other types of in-depth interaction might seem a bit scary at first, but with hard work and the right programs, you can learn to manage your fear, and open yourself up to better interpersonal relationships.
Many people know about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD from hearing of how it affects troops returning from 
combat, particularly if those soldiers happen to be Americans returning from Iraq. It may be understood partly as a high and constant experience of anxiety stress stemming from a traumatic experience. However, on top of the anxiety stress, there are also other symptoms that make this disorder particularly difficult to live with.
• Sufferers of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder often display common anxiety stress symptoms such as dilated pupils, hyperventilation, etc. As a result, the person may become very exhausted, and may even be unable to eat or sleep properly. PTSD sufferers often re-live their traumatic experience(s) with horrifying vividness. They might have extremely detailed nightmares, or might have sudden flashbacks while awake. The flashbacks may or may not have an obvious trigger (usually being a stimulus intimately connected with the experience, at least in the sufferer’s mind).
• If you are dating someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, do not be dismissive of their symptoms of anxiety and stress, or try to tell them it is “only in their mind.” Sufferers have often gone through some terrible fear and suffering, even if they may not have been physically harmed, or only mildly so. Making little of their anxiety stress can come off as very insensitive. Rather, be reassuring, and convince them to get help. The latter is very important, as many sufferers are too proud to get help, or are convinced that therapy will only bring past traumas closer to the surface. If you have PTSD yourself, dating might seem intimidating. You may want to go through a little preliminary therapy—baby steps towards recovery—first.
• People with PTSD can try many different options to treat their anxiety stress and other issues stemming from the disorder. Medication and therapy are common choices. However, support groups (both online and face-to-face) are also popular and often effective.
Anxiety panic attacks are a distinguishing characteristic of the condition known as panic disorder. People afflicted with this disorder tend to live under a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. They worry a great deal about having more anxiety panic attacks, and the worry tends to trigger these attacks. A person might have a single attack lasting only a few minutes, but there can be worse incidents in which short attacks follow each other in quick succession over several hours.
Panic Disorder and Relationships
If possible, and if your attacks are very frequent and unpredictable, you might think about warning your date partner about them. If an attack occurs, your date might then be able to take some action or call for appropriate help. Anxiety panic attacks can be very serious, and you should not be embarrassed about asking another person to help you stay safe. You might think that the fact that you have these attacks will be a turn-off to some potential date partners, and this might be the case sometimes. Then again, you might not want to date that kind of person anyway.
If you are on the other end of the equation, and are dating a person who has anxiety panic attacks symptoms, do remain calm yourself if an attack occurs. Treat the situation seriously, and ask if there are any basic measures you can take in case of an attack.
Panic Disorder and Other Conditions
Anxiety panic attacks are often mistaken for heart attacks, given that the symptoms are very much alike. As a result, many people run to the emergency room, thinking that they are going into cardiac arrest, when they have actually had a panic attack instead. The panic attack is not always correctly diagnosed. The patient may go home not knowing what happened, which might make him or her even more anxious, and thus triggering another attack in the near future. Being aware of and understanding your condition are important in terms of helping you to relax and have a plan in place in case an attack does occur.
OCD and Anxiety Symptoms
OCD stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and is classified as a type of Anxiety Disorder. Now, OCD goes far beyond being meticulous or fastidious. Thoughts about the object(s) of your obsession end up barging in on you at odd moments, and you may perform certain tasks over and over again in order to calm yourself down. There is a wide range of anxiety symptoms for this particular disorder, depending on the ostensible object of your obsession. You might wash your hand all the time, or open and close doors a particular amount of times as you pass through them. Furthermore, you might end up checking and re-checking rooms in order to ensure that you have switched off all devices. These anxiety symptoms may seem trivial, but they can take up a lot of time and energy, especially in very serious cases.
Dating can be quite the challenge for people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder anxiety. They may worry about the impression their behaviors might give to their dating partners. Heavy-duty medication might seem like a good quick fix, but studies suggest that support groups and individual therapy work a lot better. Adding medication on top of these treatments does not seem to improve their effectiveness much. Slowly but surely, people with OCD can learn to manage their anxiety and cut back on the anxiety symptoms or ritual behaviors stemming from their stress.
If, on the other hand, you are dating someone with OCD, do not condescend to them. Your dating partner most likely already knows about his/her odd, ritualistic behavior. Instead, try to help motivate them to overcome their anxiety symptoms. They may not get over them overnight, but do be encouraging whenever they show progress. The very same energy that goes into maintaining ritual behaviors might be put into overcoming these behaviors. If you play your cards right, you can reduce their anxiety, instead of adding to it and feeding further OCD-like behavior.
