Types of anxiety

Separation Anxiety

Worrying a lot when away from caregivers that something awful is going to happen to them or that they will die or you will be separated from them. You may feel like you don’t want to go out or be away from them in case something bad happens to them. You might even feel sick when they are away or say they are going away or tell them you are so they don’t go.

Phobias

Phobias are when you get really really scared about a specific object or situation. These things make you feel really panicky every time you’re faced with them and get in the way of you living your life how you’d like. This could include things like:

Social situations where you feel you might be judged (like meeting people or having conversations with people you don’t know or having a meal with others)
heights
certain animals
getting injections
seeing blood
being out in the open
storms
water
closed spaces
elevators
in crowds or standing in line
being out of home by yourself
choking or vomiting

Generalized Anxiety This is when you are constantly worrying all the time about lots of different things and finding it hard to stop worrying and just chill. You might worry about how you are doing in school or at work, what’s going to happen the next day, “what if” this and that. Your worrying gets in the way of you living your life how you like to live it.

Obsessive compulsive disorder OCD is when you have recurrent persistent and unwanted thoughts or urges or image and also behaviours or mental acts that you have to do in order to get rid of those thoughts. This could include tapping, counting, cleaning, checking over things, or doing things in a specific order in order to stop the thoughts.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) PTSD can happen to some people after something traumatic has happened. This trauma could either have happened to you, you have witnessed it happening to someone else, or you heard about it happening to a close family member or friend. These traumatic events could include death or near death experience, serious injury or sexual violence. It includes memories of the traumatic event flooding back, distressing dreams about it or flashbacks where you feel like the traumatic event is happening all over again. You may be really jumpy, be irritable, and have trouble sleeping. You may also try to avoid anything that might remind you of the event. You might start to feel really low or guilty or bad about yourself.

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