On my social media pages, I have been on a roll with providing education about anxiety and OCD. This education also helps break stigma by providing accurate information. If you are not following my Facebook or Instagram pages, you will find links to them at the bottom of this page.

My latest education piece is around the statement, “It’s all in your head!” I feel strongly about this one! This statement is extremely invalidating. It implies a person is being dramatic. It implies what the person is feeling is somehow less important than something we “consider” to be physical.

Education time!

A mental illness does come from the brain, which is in a person’s head. However, it is no less real than a broken bone! I can guarantee the person that made this statement was not making reference to the origin of mental illness.

People don’t just “turn off” their anxiety! We do have great treatment to learn to manage it, but dismissing it with this statement is not a useful one.  If someone had a broken foot, would you tell them to just go run? I didn’t think so.

Anxiety can cause REAL physical symptoms in the body. While we can get headaches from things like dehydration, we can also get them from anxiety! We can also have stomachaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, shaking, muscle tension, shortness of breath, dry mouth, and others. These can all come from anxiety.

Just because you can’t always see anxiety in the same way you can see a broken leg, that does not make it any less real.

Challenge time!

Today, I challenge you to catch yourself before you make this statement. If you hear someone else use it, explain why this type of language is not helpful, and how it contributes to stigma.

This helps us beat anxiety, together!

You got this!

Xoxo,

Andrea