The Origins of Anxiety

Anxiety often has roots in early attachments or repeated experiences that "taught" a person how they should see themselves in the world. Experiences throughout our lives affect how we see ourselves and what our brain interprets as threatening, even if there is no physical danger. The brain can easily interpret experiences as physically dangerous when you are actually safe. 

Because humans are social beings and wired for connection, humans depend on each other for survival. Cooperation and mutual kindness has helped us grow and thrive both individually and collectively. This is also true during our youngest years. We need a caregiver in order to survive, and our wellbeing and needs being met are directly tied to our earliest relationships.

We need other people, whether they are parents, teachers, authority figures, or peers, to support us and recognize our needs.

Because our brain and nervous system are wired for our survival and we need people "on our side" for our wellbeing, relational stressors trigger the same alarm bells that physical threats to safety do. That is why being called in for a meeting with your boss or your friend saying "we need to talk about something you said" triggers the same nervous system response as a real threat to your safety would.

Early Relationships

Your earliest relationships are foundational, and they become a "blueprint" for how you see yourself, the world, and other people around you. They form attachment patterns, which affects how you show up within your closest relationships.

There are four basic attachment patterns: secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. These are often formed by repetitive experiences with parents/caregivers. Many times caregivers unintentionally affect healthy attachment, and this is not coming from a place of blame for parents. 

Sometimes children play roles within the family, such as peacekeepers, caretakers, or using humor to regulate the emotional state of others. These are adaptive responses to stress within the family and are meeting a child's attachment needs, but later in life, this may impact the person's sense of self. For example, they may feel a need to please others even when they don't want to or feel a responsibility for others' emotional states. Some people also want to practice having healthier responses, now that they are in a place as an adult where they can work through things and learn different ways of communicating with family members. Through therapy, we look at your childhood experiences with compassion and focus on the impact of what you experienced rather than assigning blame. 

Most of the time when someone is experiencing a pain point in their adult life, the wound can be traced back to relational experiences from childhood or earlier memories. Even experiences that that don't seem to have relational roots often do, such as feeling unsafe after having a car accident. There often are earlier experiences unconsciously contributing to feeling anxious, vulnerable, or uncertain of their future. 

Repeated Experiences

Repeated experiences reinforce the impacts of an event, whether it's a helpful impact or a hurtful impact. Whatever happens over and over and over often carries more weight than something that happened just once. These repeated experiences start to build up over time and may even feel like patterns that you can't change. 

Often people begin forming a sense of identity with the repeated pattern and believe that they are the exception. They may think positively about others and feel negatively about themselves. For example, someone struggling with people pleasing may say, "other people can advocate for their needs but I shouldn't". Here's another example: repeated experiences of feeling invalidated may leave someone doubting themselves, seeking validation from others, or having a hard time identifying their needs. This impacts their emotional / mental wellbeing, self esteem, and confidence, and the quality of their relationships.

Repeated experiences impact us, whether they are with friends, family, coworkers/peers, teachers, bosses, parents, and so on. These patterns begin to feel predictable and often people feel "stuck" or helpless within the cycle. 

The patterns impact your sense of self, and can contribute to social anxiety and it being hard to communicate with others. You may feel self conscious, which contributes further to anxiety. For example, if someone has repeated experiences of being bullied or rejected by others, they may experience anxiety or try to avoid rejection. This creates loneliness and lack of confidence, which impacts their self esteem.