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How I Overcame Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The Hardest Battle of My Life

Ryan M. Danks
11 min readAug 13, 2020
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

Describing anxiety is difficult. It’s like every nerve is activated all at once in a fight or flight response against something that isn’t even there. Imagine what it must feel like to fight a bear, the fear, the pressure to survive, the adrenaline…that’s what it’s like when anxiety strikes.

Except there is no bear. It’s just you and…nothing. If there was a reason to be afraid, it wouldn’t be Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Preparing to survive a real ordeal isn’t a disorder, it’s how we’re supposed to function. When you have an anxiety disorder, the brain has been rewired with the wrong response to situations that are not actually dangerous.

When you have an anxiety disorder, the brain has been rewired with the wrong response to situations that are not actually dangerous.

Of course, the other side of the coin is coming down from that intense emotional and physiological response: depression. People without a disorder have responses to situations throughout their day, but under normal conditions, these responses are little bumps of highs and lows. Anxiety takes you so far up that when you come down, you plummet.

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Ryan M. Danks
Ryan M. Danks

Written by Ryan M. Danks

Adventurer • Writer • Lover of coffee and good stories // ryanmdanks.com

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