How to Reduce Your Amputee Anxiety
What Causes Amputee Anxiety
Sixty-four percent of recent amputees suffer from anxiety. Many of them find they are overwhelmed by that fear. There are some specific triggers that the newly amputated face that is unique.
Amputation Anxiety starts with the realization that your body will drastically change, and your brain still is in denial that anything will be missing. The dichotomy in your mind that can be scary. When you have time to plan your amputation, the level of anxiety is not any less, but it is more gradual and subtle.
When you wake up from an auto accident and realize a vital piece of you is missing, it is a different story. You have no time to prepare. Usually, panic sets in quite early when you have to come up with a plan of when you can return to work and deal with all the problems you could not deal with when you had two legs.
How to Reduce Your Amputee Anxiety
Anxiety is measured by its persistence and duration. You can be anxious about your future and so distraught that you can’t make the most basic plans. Anxiety can be that specific, or it can be generalized with no particular cause
It is essential to conceptualize what you are feeling. Anxiety and a fear of losing control feed on each other, but the symptoms are the same.
Everyone feels anxious now and then. It’s a normal emotion. Anxiety disorders are different, though. They are a group of mental illnesses, and the distress they cause can keep you from carrying on with your recapitalization. Panic, fear, and uneasiness are the major symptoms. Insomnia, shortness of breath, and an inability to remain calm are other symptoms that may be present. Shortness of breath, heart palpitations, dry mouth, nausea, muscle tension, and dizziness are reported by people suffering more severely.
There are several more specialized forms of anxiety. When you feel overwhelming self- conscious and worry in everyday social situations, it is called social phobia. You fixate about others judging you or on being embarrassed or ridiculed. Stagefright is a typical example.
Panic Attacks come on for no reason. You feel terror, have chest pains, heart palpations, choking, or convinced that you are having a heart attack.
Panic attacks can happen at a specific place or time and can generalize. Having a panic attack on a bridge, for example, can generalize to a fear of driving over another perfectly good bridge. These are specific phobias.
Lastly, generalized anxiety disorder is when you feel excessive, unrealistic worry and tension with little or no reason.
Treating anxiety disorders and panic attacks, which are the more severe form, require special skills and training. For the last thirty-five years, I have helped many people gain control of this sometimes disabling illness.
Living with Amputation: Anxiety and Depression Correlates
Emotional Recovery: The Long and Winding Road