Anxiety is extremely common. A third of us will experience an anxiety disorder. It’s the most common mental health problem in young people, and it can make you feel like you’re going to die.. You know someone who has an anxiety disorder. Maybe it’s you. It can be a normal reaction to stress or danger, but when anxiety becomes irrational, when the release of stress hormones is not in proportion with external realities, then it’s a disorder, and anxiety disorders have the power to paralyze a person between fight or flight. It can mean breaking down in tears because you want toast when your partner has finished the bread. It can be intensely physical, like a painful weight on your chest. For Jess, a big part of her anxiety story was an eating disorder. This isn’t unusual, anxiety disorders also tend to occur alongside other mental illnesses. 25% of people with ADHD will also have an anxiety disorder, almost half of people with major depressive disorder have an anxiety disorder as well, and over half of people with OCD have an anxiety disorder. So this episode of Playing with Marbles is going to focus first on Jess’s anxiety, and then on her eating disorder. If this sounds like picking from a catalogue of disorders, found in different categories in a big book of mental illness… that’s because it is. If you’ve ever talked to a doctor about your mental health you’ll probably have had the experience of filling out a questionnaire. That’s the doctor looking to see if you match the criteria for a diagnosis set out in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (or the DSM-5. It can feel a little impersonal… but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We’re talking to a scientist who can tell us why this method gets used, but also how they’re looking to move past a categorical approach to something a little more personal.
Anxiety is one of the body’s natural responses to stress. When a person is met with an important event or perceived danger, anxiety can help them to react to that stressor. But when symptoms of anxiety are ongoing or severe, it’s a sign of an anxiety disorder. There are several types of anxiety disorders, with each subtype categorized by how anxiety appears in the afflicted person’s life.
This episode’s guest, Jess, has been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or GAD. It’s the most broad and one of the most common anxiety disorders types. In this episode, Jess shares with us that she didn’t recognize her anxious episodes as symptoms of an anxiety disorder – an occurrence that is all too common. Though detection and diagnosis through self-reported measures has ameliorated over the years, anxiety disorders, like panic disorder, GAD, and social anxiety disorder, are one of a handful of disorders that often go undetected, underreported, and undiagnosed.
Jess discusses her struggles with anxiety, alongside her past struggles with an eating disorder. She isn’t alone in her struggles with these two disorders, in fact, anxiety has been shown to be the most common psychiatric comorbidity amongst people who have eating disorders.
Fast Facts
Learn More about This Episode’s Cool Research
Eating disorders are commonly associated with other psychiatric illnesses, like anxiety (as mentioned above) and depression. One such illness is Body Dysmorphic Disorder, or BDD, a condition where a person perceives a distorted version of their own body and becomes preoccupied with it. BDD as a common comorbidity of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, or simply “anorexia”, has been investigated since at least the early 2000s. Thanks to the research of Dr. Jamie Feusner, who we talked to for this episode, we are gaining a better understanding of the potential mechanisms that contribute to anorexia and BDD, and how they may be linked.
In a first-of-its-kind neuroimaging study, using a technology that measures brain waves called electroencephalography (EEG), Dr. Feusner found that individuals with anorexia may have abnormalities in the way they process and perceive certain types of visual information. For example, holistic, or configural, processing (e.g., seeing the face as a whole) was found to be deficient in people with anorexia while the perception of part-based, or detailed, processing (e.g., seeing the features… two eyes, a nose and a mouth… of a face) was enhanced. Taken together, these results could help explain why people with anorexia tend to fixate on particular body parts while placing less emphasis on the whole body. In people with BDD, results showed that these individuals may be experiencing abnormalities in the way they structurally encode visual information, which could contribute to the perceptual distortions that are a hallmark symptom of the disease. This research from Dr. Feusner provides an exciting avenue for the use of EEG as a biomarker of abnormal visual processing.
Support
If you’re struggling with your mental health, you’re not alone.
If you are in immediate danger of harming yourself or others, call 9-1-1, or head to your nearest emergency room. You can also call or text 9-8-8 to reach the Suicide Crisis Helpline. Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Young people can chat anytime with Kids Help Phone by calling 1-800-668-6868. Services are available in English and French.
Wellness Together Canada provides one-on-one counselling, self-guided courses and programs, and peer support and coaching. Youth can contact this service by calling 1-888-668-6810 or texting WELLNESS to 686868. Adults can contact this service by calling 1-866-585-0445 or texting WELLNESS to 741741. You can also find credible articles and information on their website.
The Canadian Mental Health Association can help you find resources, programs, or support for yourself or others. Find a CMHA branch in your area here.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health provides Mental Health 101 tutorials and online courses on their website.
The Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatment has a list of resources for those dealing with mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders.
Anxiety Canada has resources available on their website, along with resources specifically for youth.
The National Eating Disorders Information Centre provides resources and support to those in Canada affected by an eating disorder.