by Dan Stelter

Created on: April 05, 2009

Many of us have struggled with severe anxiety for years, perhaps decades and generations. Some of us have been anxious for many years and have just recently identified anxiety as a struggle in our lives. Then, some others are struggling their way through the recovery process, which seems daunting, if not impossible, at times.

What is the other side of anxiety like? First, we must understand what is meant by the "other side" of anxiety. Anxiety, viewed from a life-long perspective, seems to me to occur in three stages. In the first stage, a person is highly anxious, stressed out, and realizes that life is stressful, but has no understanding of what is going on. Life is chaotic, difficult to manage, and sometimes is just downright horrible. Tasks that seem mundane to others are seen as highly difficult to those afflicted with certain anxiety conditions. There is no end, it seems, and people in this category may feel that they are deeply flawed. Many give up hope and concede that they are "losers." In the second stage, a person realizes that something is wrong and starts to do something about it in order to understand and address the problem. Some tasks that were previously challenging become easier. A person's confidence grows, and often times that person feels quite confident and optimistic about life. But then, on occasion, that person can spiral off into anxious tailspins. Tasks that this person feels that most people can perform with ease once again become daunting. Again, it seems that there is no different way of life; a person feels as though he or she will be anxious in all situations and simply will be unable to do some of the things he or she dreams about doing. In the third stage, a person often tells the anxiety what to do. This person can handle most, if not all, situations that were previously anxiety-provoking. If a person meets a challenge that is too difficult to handle, the person is able to fall back on his or her own intelligence, regroup, and come back at the challenge again another day. Anxiety can be bothersome in some situations, but it does not prevent a person from doing the things that he or she believes he or she can do. This final stage is what I term to be the "other side."

I believe that I have made it to this third, and possibly final (although that remains open) stage, and am writing this article to let everyone else out there know that there is hope for a better way of life. I used to struggle with severe social anxiety, to the

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