Anxiety sucks, period.
This article will not try to make it out to be something more than the crippling fear-inducing disease that tries to sneak up on you at every sign of weakness.
It does not deserve any other recognition.
But the fact is that even with all of its negative effects on many peoples' lives, those that learn to live with it and take on the challenge of not giving up to the fear, actually end up with certain "perks" that give them surprising advantages over all the regular folks who never had to face off with their worst fears every single day.
So, in the spirit of appreciating all the challenges and rewards that life brings us, this article will go through some of the main benefits that can be obtained by those get to know their anxiety and learn to control it.
Finding Yourself There are many reasons anxiety can appear in one's life, some of which are even genetic and completely unrelated to any environmental factors in your life, but for many of us, anxiety was our subconscious minds' way of telling us that something was wrong, even though we might have not had any clue at the time.
Facing the crippling fears and stress that anxiety and panic attacks can make us feel is probably one of the worst experiences in life, but, over time (and sometimes it takes a reaaally long time, which is okay), you start noticing patterns in your anxiety or panic attack symptoms, and naturally start connecting the dots with what they might really be telling you, even though, at first, the idea might seem completely untrue.
I had a really long journey of having seemingly no control over my anxiety, including multiple sessions with different therapists, in which I tried to find reasons for my anxiety, usually to no avail.
For me, it seemed that my life was great - I downplayed all the negative and stressful things that were happening and had completely convinced myself that I was happy, even though a part of me was clearly telling me I wasn't.
Only after years of struggling on and off with anxiety, I finally allowed myself to accept that there were actual things in my life that made me feel anxious, or even feel the very real physical symptoms, and that I was failing to communicate with myself.
Looking back, it's hard to believe that I didn't see how stressed I was and how I didn't allow myself to pursue my own passions, but at the time it was a complete blind spot for me.
Now I'm not saying that it's exactly how it'll go for you, but anxiety is a really difficult journey, which does yield fruitful rewards when you start experiencing the victories over your own fears.
You start to realize that you have to listen to what you really want, and that only then can you find your true identity and your true calling in life, because you learn not to allow your fears to make decisions for you.
New Motivation and Purpose The ongoing battle with anxiety forces a person to develop strong core values and a motivation to do significant things with their lives - you could even say that anxiety is the kind of jolt to a person's life that can forever lift him from the emotionally and mentally dull life that he might have had before.
Anxiety instantly throws us far away out of our comfort zone, and we are forced to deal with life on a much more difficult plane, and that can force you to completely rethink all the choices you've made in life, as well as the current goals you are striving (or not striving) to accomplish.
I had a very difficult path to realizing that I don't have to follow someone else's path or push expectations onto myself just to please others - I have found passion in the things that truly interest me and have finally rid of the emotional burden I had when I couldn't let go of the image of myself that I had created in my head.
This allowed me to feel a new and powerful purpose for life, and also gave me new strength to strive for goals that actively excite me every day.
And even though the anxiety might never completely go away and still remain lurking in the corner of your mind, when you find happiness in the things you strive for, the anxiety starts losing its grip on the way you feel.
Side note: with the risk of sounding even more like a new-age spiritual guide, I simply have to recommend a book that really helped me in understanding how the way I view myself, or my self-image, effects the way I feel every day, including the anxious feelings as well.
The book is called Psycho-Cybernetics, and it was written by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz over 50 years ago.
The book has been republished multiple times, but the new versions are edited out and not nearly as good, so try to look for the original - I believe you can find the kindle or audiobook versions on Amazon.
In my opinion, it's a must-read for anyone, because it contains some of the fundamental psychological ideas of self-perception, as well as clear instructions about how to change it for the better.
It Gives You Courage and Confidence Fear is not something that is reserved exclusively for those who have anxiety or experience panic attacks - it's an integral part of the human experience.
Heck, it's an integral part of almost any living creatures' experience.
Fear is what has kept people from being wiped off this earth in the very dawn of our existence, and it played a big part in our civilization being where it is today.
On the other hand, fear is the thing that holds many people back in life - even if the fear is very subtle, lurking in the back of ones' mind, it can still make a person hesitant to try something he wants, pursue his true dreams, or even ask a someone you like on a date.
But when you get to feel the "pleasure" of experiencing anxiety disorder and/or panic attacks, along with its unmistakable crippling effects of fear that can make you completely incapable of functioning normally, it changes your perception of the sensation altogether.
If you manage to pull through and come out on the other side okay, it can give you a new kind of feeling of courage and confidence.
In fact, when you manage to gain control over your anxiety, even everyday situations that are commonly stressful to people can seem much less frightening - public speaking, job interviews, big exams all pale in comparison to a full blast panic attack, so you might turn out to be more composed than most, simply because of your experience in dealing with fear.
You're Better Prepared for Emergency Situations As you probably know, panic attacks are basically our bodies misreading the environment and going into the fight or flight response, which is intended to prepare our body for extreme situations, like, for instance, fighting off or running away from a large mountain lion, or basically dealing with any kind of dangerous situation.
While this is a problem when you're not in any real danger because of the confusing symptoms of pounding heart, running thoughts, dizziness and many others that are caused by the released adrenaline and other chemicals by our brain, it does have some benefits - when you're constantly exposed to danger (albeit, not real danger), your mind gets a chance to get used to the feeling.
You are forced to live your regular everyday life while occasionally experiencing these bouts of fear, and, in time, you inevitably learn to deal with it, functioning normally.
And that means that when a real emergency situation occurs, you might also be able to keep your mind relatively calm and not allow yourself to completely lose it.
In fact, some psychiatrists that going through anxiety and panic attacks actually prepares you for the extreme situations in your life - your body sort of gets "used" to the fight or flight response so much that when a situation that requires it actually happens, you will not be as fazed by it as others and might be able to react much faster, making rational decisions while others freeze up.
Natural Aversion of Unnecessary Risk While having a certain "edge" when it comes to extreme situations is great, the truth is that most of us would probably be very happy to avoid those kinds of situations altogether.
Even if you'd be able to remain as cool as Samuel L.
Jackson when dealing with a real life-threatening situations for yourself or others, I think you'd agree with me when I say that it's better not to get into such a situation and spare yourself the trouble.
The good news is, that while anxiety's tendency of initially forcing you to avoid social situations and even the activities you love because of fear is not fun at all, it can also help us develop a habit of rationally assessing a situation and calculating a risks before making a decision.
Even once you get over your initial fears and can return to a relatively normal life, you're still left with the almost obsessive, but efficient ability to assess danger potential in different scenarios rather quickly.
But instead of considering "feeling anxious or having a panic attack" a threat, you can consider real dangers - like walking down a dark alley with your girlfriend/boyfriend, going into a shady bar, or even getting behind the wheel after you've had a few drinks.
While some might make the ever so charming "Yolo" argument (or whatever those kids are calling it these days.
I'm getting old), having some common sense and the ability to make rational decisions will, at the very least, give you a higher chance of living long enough to procreate (if you want), or to at least find out what happens in the Game of Thrones finale.
It's difficult to sugarcoat something as despicable as anxiety disorder - it has been a terrible experience for millions of people around the world, and thus there's no justifying it as something even resembling "good".
But even in our worst trials, such as anxiety can surely be, it's important to find the bright spots, because when you look at it as an experience, you can realize that your battle with anxiety has indeed made you stronger and better in many ways.
Having to deal with such adversity on a daily basis and pulling through is something to be proud of, and something that can give you confidence in all areas of life.
So whether you're currently going through one of the "bad days", or if you're well on your way to recovery, remember this - the same anxiety that seemed to be taking away your life, might become something that makes you live your life to the fullest.