Day in The Life of A Teenager With An Anxiety Disorder

Being a teenager can be tough, for a young person with an anxiety disorder life can feel like a constant uphill battle. In this post, we will look at what a typical day may be like for a teenager with an anxiety disorder, highlighting the multitude of obstacles they may face.  

Mornings  

Many of us will remember what chaotic mornings before school can be like for families: fighting to use the bathroom, not being able to find any matching socks and having to eat breakfast in the car because we’re running late. For those with an anxiety disorder, this morning routine can often be an unbearable experience.  

Anxiety disorders are typically accompanied by what we call “what-if thoughts”. These thoughts often lead to feelings of worry about upcoming events and imagining worst-case scenarios. So, the chaos of the morning rush often floods a teenager's mind with the millions of things that could wrong that day. 

 What if something goes wrong?  

What if they laugh at me?  

What if they don’t like me?  

These thoughts occupy so much bandwidth that even simple tasks become challenging. Finding two matching socks in that pile of single socks can quickly become impossible. 

Anxiety disorders often lead to negative self-talk and low self-esteem. These place their perceived weaknesses in the centre of their “what if" thoughts. 

The simplest morning routine activity becomes paralysed by this continuous stream of self-doubt and worry. 

This daily battle won’t stop at the mind either. In chronic anxiety, the body’s stress response system is continuously activated. This response leads to physiological changes that typically prepare the body for fight or flight.

Such changes may include increased breathing and heart rate, but also other sensations such as headaches or stomach aches. Now our teenagers are mentally dreading the day, but their bodies are reacting as if they’ve been in a car crash.

Chances are, they have no idea why. So, they may also be worrying there is something wrong with their body.  

Just thinking about it is exhausting – teenagers with an anxiety disorder will experience this, daily, all before they make it out of the front door.  

School  

School can be an extremely trying environment, and all the obstacles faced in the early morning will continue to follow students throughout the school day.  

The pressure to fit in and constant exposure to complex, and often unpredictable social interactions is a universal experience for secondary school students – one that has been continuously portrayed in the media. (The film “Mean Girls” is a standout example)

This already adverse social experience is accentuated even further for a person with an anxiety disorder. Their low self-esteem and consequent lack of confidence may result in them struggling to build new relationships or nurture existing ones.

They may find themselves constantly questioning what to do or what to say and regretting or “cringing” any interaction they have.  

Their lack of trust in themselves and a fear of rejection (what if I get laughed at?) may lead to social isolation, further exacerbating their self-doubt and loneliness.  

At school, the anxiety battle does not stop at a social life. One piece of advice a young person may receive – or at least I remember receiving – is to not worry oneself too much with the dynamics of the social hierarchy and just focus on doing well in class.

After all isn’t that why we go to school for?  

Well, even if a young person with an anxiety disorder were to follow such well-meaning advice, chances are they will struggle with that too.  

Anxiety can often take a toll on the brain’s cognitive abilities. When the body is in a state of high alert – what we often refer to as “survival mode” or “fight or flight” – the brain will prioritise processes related to perceiving and responding to a threat, thus making it difficult to focus on other tasks.

So not only is our teenager constantly feeling on edge and worrying, but it’s also difficult for them to focus on other things like complicated math problems.

They are now left questioning why they can’t make friends easily like the popular kids, but also why they can’t concentrate like the studious kids – note that these are in no way mutually exclusive!  

After-school  

For most of us, afterschool activities (and after work) are a wonderful way of letting go of everything that has happened that day.

Whilst this can often be the case, and hobbies can often be almost therapeutic for children with anxiety, for others, they can be an absolute nightmare. The cognitive issues mentioned above may also include motor and planning functions.

So, whilst kicking a ball about may have seemed like a brilliant idea to channel all that worry into something else, it may not be as such if it’s impossible to kick the ball the right way. What’s wrong with me? I can’t even kick a ball. I’m useless. 

Evening routine 

When they get home, our teenagers will have had an exhausting day. Their anxiety will have made them constantly worry and feel awful, it will also have created barriers at every single step of their day.

Sadly, anxiety’s insidious effect won’t stop once they walk in through the door. Whilst they may be back in their safe space and won’t have to deal with the outside world, their “what if” thoughts and negative self-talk will continue.

They may start worrying about the next day or question everything they have done throughout the day. Why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why couldn’t I do that?  

After such a day, most of us will just want to wind down and go to sleep. This too may be a challenge for our teenagers.

The heightened stress response and associated physiological effects make it challenging for the body to relax. And the continuous battle may even prevail at night.

The constant “what if” thoughts are likely to be at their loudest at night when there are no other distractions around, making it difficult to drift off to sleep.

Our exhausted teenagers will want to drown these thoughts through any distraction possible, such as using their phones or watching something.  

And when our teenager finally manages to fall asleep, possibly after hours of distracting themselves from their thoughts, that sleep may be disrupted by night terrors.

Our teenagers will thus wake up the next morning with sleep deprivation, which will not only make their daily battles more challenging but also have other considerable effects on their physical and mental health.  

As a parent watching your child go through the above is heartbreaking and it is easy to feel lost as to how to help them. That is where Anxend comes in, our coaches will help guide your family through dealing with anxiety and equip you with the tools to reclaim your family from the grip of anxiety.

Book a free assessment consultation today to start your journey to making sure your child doesn’t have to spend every day fighting with anxiety.  

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