4 Signs Your Anxiety May Stem from Your Family History

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problem in the US. More than 40 million people in the US are affected by this—adults and children both. Anxiety disorders can stem from many things, including genetic or biological factors.

While we can’t be 100% certain about the cause of someone’s anxiety, researchers have their theories. If you’ve had traumatic life experiences, physical conditions that can cause anxiety, or anxiety disorders in your family, you are more like to develop an anxiety disorder.

Can anxiety stem from your family history? If you, your siblings, or your parents feel anxious about the same things, this could be a pattern. If you have noticed the following signs, it might be beneficial to seek help from an anxiety counseling expert.

Overly Stressed

If you’ve seen your parents or even grandparents always stressed out, they probably had an anxiety disorder. Chances are, you might have inherited their genetic traits, including their anxiety.

Maybe your dad has always been stressed about his job because he was always under pressure, and he took it out on you, your siblings, or your mom. Or your mom was always stressing you out about your school. This can affect how you’ve handled anxiety and stress growing up.

Cold or Unattached

Cold, unattached, and distant parents can raise anxious children. But not just this; your anxiety could be because of their anxious parenting. Even if they didn’t have an anxiety disorder, the lack of physical affection, safe space, words of affection, and the warmth a child needs from their parents could manifest in the child as anxiety.

A warm and welcoming home with loving parents raises children to be secure in all areas of life as they feel loved and understood. Whereas parents who keep their children at a distance can raise children who feel uncomfortable, on edge, and anxious all the time.

Unable to Handle Stress Well

Did your parents throw a fit of rage at every little thing and take out their anger on external factors on you or your siblings? This could be because of their inability to handle stress well or process their anger. This could have rubbed off on you very easily.

Sometimes, grown adults can also not handle traumatic moments like the death of their parents. This leads to bad experiences for the children around them, who are also unable to handle stress well as adults.

Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

Dealing with anxiety and stress is a battle in itself. If your parents coped with their anxiety in unhealthy ways, it can lead to more negative feelings and worsened anxiety. If you have grown up in a house where your parents reached for alcohol or cigarettes to deal with their problems, chances are you also never found healthy coping mechanisms either.

Silicon Valley Marriage Counseling provides those with anxiety or other mental health concerns counseling for depression, relationship counseling, anxiety counseling, marriage and family therapy, couples counseling, and infidelity counseling, in Palo Alto.

Call us at (650) 206-9973 or reach out to us.