Finally the researchers compared the quality-of-life findings for those individuals who had dysthymia, general anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, or social phobia with those for subjects who had schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. They found that those with anxiety disorders or dysthymia suffered even more than those with the three more severe disorders did.

Yay we win! We officially have the worst lives ever ever! Go us! We've taken the gold at the personality disorder olympics!

We are playing life in expert mode. Makes it more virtuous to manage to stay alive with this curse.

Turns out people who have mental disorders defined to mean that they experience frequent distress and unhappiness, tend to have a low quality of life (where quality of life is defined as being happy). Who'd have guessed? And surprisingly dysthymia, which is defined as having a low mood for 2+ years, has the closest correlation with having a low quality of life aka mood. Research funds well-spent.

Damn. Link to the study?

https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.o...hnews_46_2_032

Thanks. Y’know... this is kind of validating. I’m not crazy - SA really does make a person unhappy.

Who would have thought anxiety permeating conventional day to day experience for years on end would make a person's life less happy.

Just gotta grind on....

Knowing that my anxiety issues probably means I suffer more than others (or vice versa) doesn't really make a difference to me. I still have to live my own life regardless of who's better off/who's worse off than I am.
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Yes but the post isn't about you. The whole point of the post is to bring awareness I guess to people who maybe stigmatize anxiety.To show that anxiety disorders users can suffer as much as bipolar users (or even more in this case).

That's a good point. At my age it won't make a difference for me but thinking about it, more awareness and understanding about what severe anxiety can do to a person is a step in the right direction.
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Doesn't surprise me because social anxiety disorder is more likely to go untreated and bipolar people at least have highs and don't necessarily have anxiety, which is more debilitating in the modern world. Schizophrenia symptoms are bad though because they effect motivation etc negatively.

Also supposedly schizoid personality disorder actually has the lowest quality of life for mental health disorders, especially if you also have autism:

I imagine the deadness that accompanies schizoid PD and schizophrenia reduces some of the acute suffering though.

I think when societies reach a certain level of unhappiness usually linked in part to economics and perceived scarcity, they find a way to trigger a war, and then feel happier after the war.

Ummmm.....you're kinda helping them, aren't you?

my general diagnosis can be dysphasia

my temporal lobe damage?
language-processing difficulty

occasional MRI scans every few years, usually straight after shocked state of being assaulted socially, morally. resus, rehab inpatient a few months


no problem speaking boldly, altho very struck faint, powerless in presence of elders, ANY authority at all! i crumble and can fail to plump up a strong announcement? affected by any under-thumb nature of U CAN'T nature of any person's opinions, Ego!... my big brother! my friends on a level! √

fact i can perform and deserve to resume my career!!! bouncing back for max 2-year gaps. no hospital inpatient time 4 months monitored, incarcerated! always involving Xmas! Nov-Feb! not related to any inability!!! like falling over when running? get up & carry on. discharge statement: UNFIT FOR WORK! WWRRONGG!! ILLEGAL! 4 months in a ward does not correlate at all to time working in office on database operations, analysis, all businesses, including NHS & many more. i anchored down, not allowed any interview since 2011. life over. strong thread. how each affects each other.. lack of partner can affect employers' judgement! a human must be a full all-rounder! high salary required to get married & kids! if none of those.. a loner, loser will never get employed! one little boost just let me work, i be happy, all others be happy. they get what they want out of me. let me! scorn, frowns not good of employers

Having to had been diagnosed with GAD and one 'of the worse' disorders, I will say that anxiety just puts the icing on the cake. Still don't think that one disorder should outweigh another.

No? all I am saying is that it people with anxiety disorder isnt something you can snap out of it and we do yes suffer sadly. I feel like there should be more funding towards anxiety disorders.

^^^^^^^ This.

I don't see what someone with SA could do with this information besides feel worse, or draw comparisons more than they already do. I choose not to on the basis that I certainly do not think I have it worse than somebody with schizophrenia or bipolar.

i have whatnot disorders and i can say that the worst of all is social anxiety/people phobia/selective mutism and depression.

shizophrenia and bipolar is nothing

I found the research to be quite interesting and had to share it. If you are looking for advice then I would suggest going to coping with social anxiety.

In any event, Saarni said, “Most striking to me has been the large impact of anxiety disorders and dysthymia, all of which have traditionally been considered neurotic, milder conditions. Anxiety disorders especially have not been high treatment priorities in comparison to depression, even though good evidence-based pharmacological and psychological treatments exist [for the anxiety disorders]. For example, the World Health Organization/World Bank burden-of-disease studies did make the impact of depression well known, but failed to include most anxiety disorders.”