Find a TherapistReady to get started?Ready toget started?Add your email to continueEmailGet startedBy submitting your email, you agree to receive reminders and marketing communications.
Ready to get started?Ready toget started?Add your email to continueEmailGet startedBy submitting your email, you agree to receive reminders and marketing communications.
Ready to get started?
Ready toget started?
Add your email to continue
Get started
By submitting your email, you agree to receive reminders and marketing communications.
Table of Contents:Overview
Anxiety DisorderRead Time: 4 Minutes
Published On: February 19, 2018
Reviewed On: February 19, 2018
Updated On: July 2, 2024
OverviewIn my practice, I see many clients who grew up in very anxious families. Parents may have suffered from generalized anxiety,social anxiety, agoraphobia, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Often, these parents were never formally diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and it’s only after the fact, during adulthood, that clients are able to recognize and understand how anxious their parents were — and how it has affected their mental health, both during childhood and into adulthood.
Overview
In my practice, I see many clients who grew up in very anxious families. Parents may have suffered from generalized anxiety,social anxiety, agoraphobia, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Often, these parents were never formally diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and it’s only after the fact, during adulthood, that clients are able to recognize and understand how anxious their parents were — and how it has affected their mental health, both during childhood and into adulthood.
Online therapy for anxiety
These implicit lessons, and others, explain why so many individuals who grew up with anxiousparents often end up in therapy, trying to work out their own mental health challenges. Imagine trying to approach a romantic interest when you’ve learned from a socially anxious parent that all people are judgmental and self-centered. Imagine trying to join your friends white water rafting when you’ve heard over and over throughout your life that drownings happen every day. In general, imagine trying to life your life without fear when you have learned from childhood that fear is a totally acceptable default state of being.
In other cases, anxious parents may feel that their anxiety is a positive thing, and desensitize their children to its debilitating effects. They may frame their worst-case-scenario mindset as foresight, ortheir perfectionism as a motivating enginethat keeps them on track and has had a positive impact on their academic or career success. SomeOCDor hoarding parents completely deny their behavior, which can be crazy-making for the children.
If you are the anxious child of anxious parents, do your best not to dwell in the past, resenting your parents for their issues or wondering what it would be like to have grown up differently.
Instead, prioritize your own mental health and begin to work with a therapist on changing the perspective that you were raised with. Keep in mind that it will require some unlearning, and practicing a new way of trying to approach the world. You will be challenging the constrained, negative, and pessimistic style of thinking that you learned at home, and working toward adopting a more expansive and accepting perspective on things.
Despite this difficulty, many people are able to change the assumptions and expectations that they have about the world, and decrease or eliminate their own anxiety.
If this article describes you and your parents, take a risk and seek out a therapist who works with anxiety. You have nothing to lose and a new, free, and healthy worldview to gain.
Dr. Samantha RodmanDr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, PsyD, is originally from Brooklyn, New York and now lives in Potomac, Maryland with her husband and three children. She attended Columbia University for her BA, and received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Whiten is a licensed psychologist seeing clients via phone and video. She has been working with individuals, couples, and families in her private practice since 2009.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, PsyD, is originally from Brooklyn, New York and now lives in Potomac, Maryland with her husband and three children. She attended Columbia University for her BA, and received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Whiten is a licensed psychologist seeing clients via phone and video. She has been working with individuals, couples, and families in her private practice since 2009.
Share
Effective and affordable mental health treatmentGet Started
Effective and affordable mental health treatment
Related Articles About Anxiety DisorderView all articlesAnxiety DisorderDecember 4, 2024How to Overcome Anxiety About Your Cancer DiagnosisAnxiety DisorderOctober 23, 2024Nurse Anxiety: Overcoming Stress in a High-Pressure ProfessionAnxiety DisorderOctober 23, 2024Overcoming Anxiety in the MilitaryAnxiety DisorderSeptember 18, 2024Overcoming Parental Anxiety: Strategies for a Calmer MindAnxiety DisorderAugust 26, 202415 Effective Coping Skills for AnxietyAnxiety DisorderJuly 24, 2024Acupuncture for Anxiety: Does it Work?Anxiety DisorderJuly 24, 2024Does Alcohol Cause Anxiety? Exploring the ConnectionAnxiety Disorder, PhobiasJune 18, 2024Agoraphobia vs Social Anxiety Disorder: What’s the Difference?Anxiety DisorderJune 18, 202413 Best Jobs for People with Social AnxietyAnxiety DisorderJune 18, 2024Election Anxiety: How to Cope With Political Stress
Related Articles About Anxiety DisorderView all articles
Related Articles About Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety DisorderDecember 4, 2024How to Overcome Anxiety About Your Cancer DiagnosisAnxiety DisorderOctober 23, 2024Nurse Anxiety: Overcoming Stress in a High-Pressure ProfessionAnxiety DisorderOctober 23, 2024Overcoming Anxiety in the MilitaryAnxiety DisorderSeptember 18, 2024Overcoming Parental Anxiety: Strategies for a Calmer MindAnxiety DisorderAugust 26, 202415 Effective Coping Skills for AnxietyAnxiety DisorderJuly 24, 2024Acupuncture for Anxiety: Does it Work?Anxiety DisorderJuly 24, 2024Does Alcohol Cause Anxiety? Exploring the ConnectionAnxiety Disorder, PhobiasJune 18, 2024Agoraphobia vs Social Anxiety Disorder: What’s the Difference?Anxiety DisorderJune 18, 202413 Best Jobs for People with Social AnxietyAnxiety DisorderJune 18, 2024Election Anxiety: How to Cope With Political Stress
Anxiety DisorderDecember 4, 2024How to Overcome Anxiety About Your Cancer Diagnosis
Anxiety DisorderOctober 23, 2024Nurse Anxiety: Overcoming Stress in a High-Pressure Profession
Anxiety DisorderOctober 23, 2024Overcoming Anxiety in the Military
Anxiety DisorderSeptember 18, 2024Overcoming Parental Anxiety: Strategies for a Calmer Mind
Anxiety DisorderAugust 26, 202415 Effective Coping Skills for Anxiety
Anxiety DisorderJuly 24, 2024Acupuncture for Anxiety: Does it Work?
Anxiety DisorderJuly 24, 2024Does Alcohol Cause Anxiety? Exploring the Connection
Anxiety Disorder, PhobiasJune 18, 2024Agoraphobia vs Social Anxiety Disorder: What’s the Difference?
Anxiety DisorderJune 18, 202413 Best Jobs for People with Social Anxiety
Anxiety DisorderJune 18, 2024Election Anxiety: How to Cope With Political Stress
If you are in a life threatening situation – don’t use this site. Call 988 or useto get immediate help.
Therapy may be free for you
