Wonderland Wanderess

    Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a psychiatric illness comprised of mental and physical symptoms dovetailing from an overarching presentation of uncontrollable worry (Salzer et al., 2011)). Other symptoms include disturbed sleep, inability to concentrate, tense muscles, irritable mood, fatigue, and restlessness. With a lifetime prevalence of 4.3–5.9%, GAD is common and is rarely sufficiently treated in primary care settings, such as general practice, resulting in significant medical costs. These include specialist fees, medication, therapies, and hospital admissions. Additional societal and individual costs include loss of productivity, sick leave, and government benefits. Due to its chronic nature and high recurrence rate (Cuijpers et al., 2014)), an evaluation of the efficacy of current treatment options is necessary. Three treatments will be analysed to determine the most advantageous option for patients with GAD. The selected treatments are intensive short-term dynamic psy

My dark passenger.  That ever present voice, quiet and gentle as a whisper at first, 'til it spins dread and fear like spider webs throughout every happy moment.  Then it crouches in the shadows, in the wake of its deception, waiting to pounce and sink its claws in for the kill.  My heart rate increases, my breath falters, my body shakes and sweat pours from my palms.  I'm now in fight or flight mode, in response to whatever situation, place or environment I've found myself in.  My body wants to run and my brain is preparing it for just that, pumping adrenaline through my veins.   I've lost count of the amount of times people have made ignorant comments, all to more or less the same effect- anxiety can be conquered with something as simple as mind over matter ..... but when half of me wants only to run and hide, while the other half  is gearing up to stay and fight the generally non-existent threat, to battle for rational calm amidst the fictional chaos, tell me