With proper and timely intervention, Anxiety can be successfully treated. Yet, barriers to effective intervention are quite common. Many with anxiety conditions are embarrassed about needing help or being stigmatized. Thus, they often needlessly delay obtaining necessary treatment, often trying every home remedy or ineffective advice from the internet, regardless of lack of evidence. Some people may feel that experiencing anxiety means they are being weak and need to deal with it on their own. Many people with severe anxiety learn how to hide their symptoms, even from close relatives or friends. They often “white-knuckle” their way through anxiety. Ironically, once they decide to be more open, many anxiety sufferers often find that they have become so good at putting up a façade that others have difficulty understanding just how much Anxiety is impacting their lives.

​

Although every person has their own threshold for how much anxiety they can tolerate, a good rule of thumb is to consider seeking professional assistance when your level of inner distress and avoidance behaviors are increasing, when it feels like anxiety is “taking over your life” by negatively affecting your education, job, or relationships and when “common sense” approaches aren’t working anymore. Sometimes when anxiety is untreated, depression or self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, gambling, or food can become another layer of the problem. In the worst-case scenario, anxiety and its related problems can become so intense that thoughts about wanting to die, just to escape anxiety can occur. Suicidal thinking always needs to be taken seriously.