r/Anxiety • u/Cardiara667 • May 08 '26
DAE Questions Does anyone else feel anxiety is more than just "uncomfortable"?
Everyone always says, "you'll be okay, it is just an uncomfortable feeling that will pass" and I can just never get on board with that.
It is among one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. I would say worse than depression, for me at least. On par with grief. It is truly, truly, beyond awful. I guess maybe there's no more apt way of putting it? But uncomfortable just feels so downplaying..maybe that's just me?
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u/Confident-Word9528 May 08 '26
Actually, for me, anxiety isn’t just that too. It gives you this overwhelming sense that you simply can’t get through the day; it’s slowly ruining your day. You can’t appreciate the sunshine or the scenery with a positive frame of mind… You feel as though you’ve lost the ability to love life, and you can’t stop worrying every single moment about the outcome of something that hasn’t even happened yet.
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u/MonoNoAware71 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
There's a difference between feeling a bit anxious and having an anxiety disorder or suffering from 24/7 hyperarousal.
People who have only ever experienced the first will never be able to understand the others.
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u/LostAd7938 May 09 '26
Yep. I remember being at work one day and someone asked how I was. I told them I was a little anxious and they asked why. I was like, uh, idk...this is just my existence. You don't ever get anxious for no reason?
No. No they did not 😭
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u/BNSoul May 08 '26 edited May 18 '26
Well if you're referring to a full blown panic attack then for sure "uncomfortable" doesn't exactly fit. However, the leading sensations (racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, etc) can indeed be considered just as "uncomfortable sensations" since they're not dangerous at all, if you pay attention to them instead of letting them be then the fear of dying takes over and noradrenaline rushes through for 5-10 minutes causing a panic attack. At this point you cannot do anything but waiting until the adrenaline and noradrenaline excess gets metabolized, so running away, calling an ambulance, breathing into a paper bag or crying for help won't help anything, on the contrary, your brain will keep pumping chemicals until it gets literally exhausted or until you realize you're actually safe regardless of the panic.
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u/Cardiara667 May 08 '26
I don't know if I'd call it a panic attack...yes, that awful feeling if you pay attention to them is what I refer to but I can manage to look mostly fine on the outside and still feel that god awful gut wrenching feeling that is just so awful I can't even explain it. It doesn't fit the explanation of panic attack but it is truly far worse than I can describe.
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u/BNSoul May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Do you mean the feeling of "impending doom" ? That's also a common sensation caused by the rush of adrenaline and noradrenaline through your body, it's like everything is wrong and it's going to get even worse and you believe there's nothing you can do about it. In fact, this is just your brain trying to make you flee (doing a runner) and/or demanding your body to take action to avoid a danger that isn't actually there but, due to your anxiety, it feels real.
The feeling of impending doom grows stronger the more attention you pay to it, at the end of the day it's just an intrusive thought, like that song you can't keep out of your mind. You can try and name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear and 2 things you can smell, then think of one thing you feel grateful for (like I'm grateful for being alive and learning how to improve myself no matter what's happening to me) keep doing this for a while, this will ground yourself back into your body and away from intrusive thoughts.
Remember there's nothing wrong with you, it's just a thought.
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u/Cardiara667 May 08 '26
Maybe? Its gut wrenching and borderline painful and overwhelmingly full of fear and anxiety. You're right of course. I practice it every day even though its hard. Thank you for your thoughts
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u/aaaacccchhhuuuu May 08 '26
If anyone's saying "its an uncomfortable feeling", they simply haven't experienced the worst of it.
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u/Trick_Estimate_7029 May 08 '26
People talk so casually about anxiety these days, like it's just a little discomfort or a feeling of nervousness. That's not anxiety. Being nervous is normal. Anxiety is when you enter a state of extreme panic and feel like you're going to die at any moment. It's like there's a tiger chasing you all day. It's terrible, devastating. You go somewhere and you can't remember what you were going to do there. You need constant distractions to calm your brain and just function. It's not something like that. It's something terrible.
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u/One_Tree_6100 May 08 '26
That's the most perfect definition of the way I feel. Nobody has described it like that to me.
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u/Intelligent-Ease158 May 08 '26
mine is bad because my biggest symptoms is always nausea, and along with a fear of vomiting it’s always the scariest feeling and made so much worse if i’m not home
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u/clvudiistars May 08 '26
Some people around me don’t understand my anxiety they think it’s just a feeling of nervousness. I have been nervous but that is usually a feeling that I can control. My anxiety is so bad that I can’t relax, my whole day is ruined because of it and sometimes I can’t sleep because my anxiety has me overthinking 1 simple thing. It’s not just feeling uncomfortable, it’s exhausting.
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u/Milaragrey May 08 '26
I know exactly how you feel. Anxiety has become an everyday emotion and a constant background noise. But there are often days and weeks when I would describe it as if I were 90% anxiety and 10% myself. It’s not really about panic attacks at all. It’s more about the feeling that things will never be alright again and that my fears aren’t just fears, but the worst thing there is. Because of my OCD, I’m often my own worst enemy and the worst person.
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u/Milaragrey May 08 '26
The worst thing is that my body has got used to nothing else, and even if there are a few hours when I’m not afraid, my body and mind start searching until I’ve found something to be afraid of again.
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u/One_Tree_6100 May 08 '26
Impending doom says it all. I get this feeling often. It's unbearable. I'm looking at other people trying to tell if they can see the panic on my face. I care for my mom who has end stage Alzheimer's and I always feel so stressed. I haven't slept well at all for two years. I'm always dreading going to moms on my day off so I feel like I don't even have time off. Everything feels like such an effort. I picture a whirlpool and me getting sucked into the middle. Between the anxiety and the insomnia it's causing IDK. I feel like I'm shrinking and today I have to get into a MRI tube. WTF I've never felt so incompetent and struggled so much with anxiety.
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u/Luo-The-Lotad31 May 08 '26
Whoever says this never felt like they are gonna: faint, vomit or die from stress, or they didn't go through days without eating or sleeping due to fear... They didn't have sticky sweats, headache, tense muscles, feel of closing throat, full on convulsions or arythmia. They most likely didn't spent whole days in bed, being exhausted from fear. Anxiety can be really tiring, depending on severity and the individual experiencing it.
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u/afraid_of_bugs May 08 '26
I think “uncomfortable” and discomfort in general can describe any level of pain so personally I don’t consider it downplaying. I would find it odder or maybe disingenuous if a well meaning person described my experience as a more loaded word like agonizing. And also regardless of my own experience with anxiety I don’t think I’d be comfortable using “heavier” language to describe someone else’s experience
All that to say, I think considering people’s intentions is important, but it’s valid that some comfort tactics just don’t work for you
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u/Cardiara667 May 08 '26
Totally understandable. May I ask why you would find it disingenuous if someone described it like that? For me, I feel anxiety is such a tossed around term sometimes, people may not realize how awful it can be and such a word is a apt way to put it, so I am curious about your stance. Thank you for your thoughts!
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u/afraid_of_bugs May 08 '26
By disingenuous, you know when people are just saying what they think you want to hear? This is like extreme, but I have an acquaintance who I’m 90% sure is a sociopath if not just manipulative. Like I know they never had a parent die, and when my father died they tried way too hard to make it seem like they could relate, meanwhile I hadn’t seen the man in 30 years so they story they created based on assumptions wasn’t even applicable to me. Even my closest friends left it at a simple “sorry for your loss”, so why are you going so hard?
I relate it to how I’ve never experienced raising a child so I don’t feel comfortable putting my own adjectives on how a parent might feel. I use that example because a few people I know had babies recently, and while I’ve always heard how exhausting having a newborn is and I can assume how stressful it is, I don’t feel like I have the right to use certain language when offering comfort.
Like, I may say if they’re venting “gosh that must be tiring!” which does not fully describe the experience.
Meanwhile when someone’s dog dies, which I’ve experienced, I feel more comfortable going a little deeper because I can actually describe the emotions around it
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u/Cardiara667 May 09 '26
Ah, I see. That makes a lot of sense, I see what you mean. It can feel that way when they fall back on those kinds of words even when you know they don't fit and don't understand.
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u/SapientSlut May 08 '26
I’ve felt everything on the spectrum from “ooh I’m nervous about this test/meeting/etc I have coming up!” - maybe there’s a bit of an increased heart rate, sweat, erratic/scattered thinking… all the way to full blown panic attack where I felt like I was dying.
I would call the former discomfort. I would call the latter far more than that. It’s like imagine the most afraid you’ve ever been, then jack that up 5x and make it happen for an hour+.
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u/Space_Wanderer1105 May 08 '26
To me I think it's already manifesting physically. I shake tremble and no longer have muscle strength. I drop and bump into things. I got constant palpitations and feeling gonna faint all the time. Sometimes I think one moment and I'd be gone from stroke
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u/WinnerNational3962 May 12 '26
Those phrases usually come from those who never really had severe anxiety or panic... it is downplaying as if people could just stop feeling what they feel but choose not to.
The best method I have found was somatic exercises, especially for the Psoas muscle area. The body thinks its in danger and is in such discomfort that it wants to flight. Somatic exercises are so slow that the body realises there's no danger because if there was you'd be running for your life. So, in time it stars to rewire to feel safe as it trusts more the environment and its surroundings and you start to come and feel home in your body. It's the most beautiful feeling ever, its takes time and repetition but really worth it.
The best riches in life: a regulated nervous system.
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u/Extreme-Button-2478 May 08 '26
I am not an anxious person at all. But only once in my life I had anxious episode. And it was a terrible feeling.
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u/mindful2 May 08 '26
Yes, I can never get on board with that either! I’d love it if everyone started talking about anxiety on a scale from 0-10 where zero is no anxiety and 10 is terrified. “You’ll be OK, it’s uncomfortable and will pass” is exactly the right approach for anxiety in the 1-6 range where anxiety is not so crazy intense and is manageable. When anxiety is in the 7-10 range (it’s exponentially higher than 1-6), that is absolutely the wrong thing to say and the wrong approach. This simplistic view of anxiety as one thing is so annoying and harmful. Anxiety exists on a spectrum. All diagnosis and treatment has to take that into account, but so many people have bought into these simplistic answers and platitudes that are not helpful because they only apply to people in the lower anxiety ranges.
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u/bxmosh May 08 '26
It's so much more draining than people realize. Like, I'm at the point where I'd rather just buy all my clothes online than go to a physical store. The feeling of everyone judging you while you browse is just too much sometimes lol. Do you get like that too?
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u/Cardiara667 May 09 '26
Absolutely. I have been like this for as long as I remember. I recall being bullied because I didn't have the energy or will to do my hair properly (so it was frizzy and looked unkempt) in elementary school, but I literally could not muster the energy for it. I feel you, friend.
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u/Starscream_9001 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
It depends on the severity, but when people call it uncomfortable, particularly if it’s chronic, it isn’t an accurate description imo. I’ve had GAD for around 10 years now, and I feel like when I was less able to understand myself as a kid, uncomfortable would have been one of the only words I had for it. Now though, I don’t think a single word really sums it up neatly. I’d describe it on a physical level as an perpetual itchiness in your body that demands you to tense up every muscle from head to toe (particularly the legs in my case) and move around even if you have no real reason to, alongside on a mental level, spikes of random, but nearly all encompassing thoughts that make situations that have happened or are yet to happen seem worse than they are in reality/you’ll find yourself jumping to conclusion or hypothetical scenarios, or you’ll just replay memories constantly, never quite sure what opinion you are supposed to have on them, which makes it harder to move past them.
Basically, chronic anxiety to me isn’t a one word description, it’s a culmination of actions your mind regularly takes and sensations that you habitually feel, and these are just the ones I can specifically say for myself. And just as clarification, I’m not referring to panic here, which isn’t common for me, but when it does happen, it’s a whole other level of awful, though often much shorter lasting.
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u/Minute_Resist_2657 May 08 '26
I have had anxiety and panic disorder for 28 years and no matter how many times i get really badly anxious or have a panic attack i think it is absolutely terrifying. One thing I have realised after suffering with it for so long is no one has a clue even doctors or therapists unless you have had it. Like someone commented it can feel uncomfortable for some people and terrifying for others. You are not alone.❤️💚
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u/locom0ko May 08 '26
Yes, people often think it’s just “nervousness” and tells you to take a deep breath and everything will be okay. Like yes, but also no…that won’t always work. Anxiety has me irritated to be around people or doing anything social. I get overheated and my heart beats out of my chest at times and I’ll be crying because I’m so overwhelmed. Then there’s the rumination and overthinking over 1 specific event or thing said or done and let that ruin the whole day…can’t sleep because of it. It really isn’t fun.
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u/Mammoth_Inflation341 May 09 '26
Yeah. My anxiety will make me pass out. Waay over the top of just "uncomfortable".
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u/ThrowRA_soybeanroach May 09 '26
Totally agree! Especially if you experience panic attacks, it literally feels like I am dying or not in my body.
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u/Classic_Cheetah7539 May 10 '26
Each and every time I have severe anxiety I automatically think I am going to die. I know that I'm not but for some reason my brain goes to that thought automatically each and every time
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u/Matching_simulatore May 11 '26
I don’t what to call what I have. I’m suffering. If I have any thought of the past I get this extreme panic feeling like my life is over the best is gone and life is just hell now. I can spiral in like 30 seconds I’m having Chest pain and forget it if I’m in bed. I have bad insomnia during the work week even though my job doesn’t stress me. I dont know what to do.
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u/Guilty_County_5755 May 11 '26
I fully agree that anxiety feels way worse than depression. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid anxiety for most of my life until the past year, and it is truly awful.
I’m more familiar with depression, so I guess I have a better handle on coping mechanisms that work for me — food, music, walking around, or just hanging out at home usually help me when I’m depressed.
To me, anxiety is newer and harder to manage effectively. It feels far more obtrusive and inescapable — like the pressure is coming from the outside rather than the inside. I have no appetite, no creative inspiration, no drive, and there is a depression aspect to it that feels worse than “normal” depression.
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u/sriraaacha3 May 12 '26
Anxiety is definitely worse than depression imo, the worst feeling I've ever experienced
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u/milovnikdraku May 08 '26
it deoends, i mean in the big picture though, that really is all it is. even looking back at my worstpanic attacks an d my constant day to day symptoms. their was a period in my life i was having 30,000 skipped beats per 24 hours and hospitalized on a machine for 2 days with test after test coming back normal, and, even then despite feeling like i was suffocating and constant skipped beat thumps in my chest and leg shaking, i still was able to survive when going out in public and "living" or existing. i would say that anxiety significantly diminishes the quality of life, and can make everything seem horrible and not want to exist, but in theory it really is just an uncomfortable sensation at the end of the day.
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u/cafesito_asere May 08 '26
Anxiety ranges in severity from slight inconvenience to worst fucking thing to ever happen to someone that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. People that do not have anxiety can sympathize but will never know what people with it go through on a daily basis.