Anxiety in Men: Where It Comes From and How to Stop It

There've been a handful of commenters recently asking about an article on anxiety in men, including this one, the first of these more recent requests:

“Hi Chase,

A slight digression from the post, hope you can add your two cents to this. You mentioned avoid being the guy who's "racked with anxiety". Throughout most of my life, I have been plagued with anxiety. My mother suffers from anxiety and I believe it has significantly influenced my development. In high school, though I was part of the cool crowd, i knew at the very core, I was extremely uncomfortable around other people. To hide my weakness, I would put on a facade that consisted of being a loud, obnoxious, "bad-ass" person.

I have matured from this and instead of living through a mask, i want to tackle my anxiety head-on. My belief is that, just like anything, gradual exposure will ultimately desensitize. I have been forcing myself to approach strangers and make conversations on a daily basis with this belief in mind. It's been a difficult journey though. Correct me if I'm wrong but through reading your ebook and blog posts, I take it you've gone through a phase of social anxiety/general anxiety yourself as well. If you could be so kind to share with me how you tackled your social anxiety, specific "exercises" that you found extremely helpful, anything you think is worth mentioning, it would truly be a boon to my development.

Many thanks,
Jack”

Jack, sure, I can go through this a bit. It's a little off topic from what we normally talk about, but I think it ties in well to being more successful with women and dating, so let's have a look.

This'll be a more personal post for me, similar to the one on how to overcome depression, simply because it's one I've had a lot of experience with and spent a long time stuck in. Anxiety and depression are quite often part-and-parcel to one another, so you might even think of this as the sequel to that post: defeating anxiety.

As a young boy, I used to lie awake at night, so filled with fear that my stomach was shriveled up in it, obsessing over and over in my mind ever tiny way that my latest fear fixation would hurt me: werewolves, vampires, trolls, needles from the doctor's office. I'd frequently get up and go down to my parents, but they couldn't offer much comfort; for once I was back upstairs in my bed again, the fears returned, and I was racked with terror until at last sleep took me.

This went on for years.

I often had terrible nightmares with horrible creatures chasing me, but for the first 5 or 6 years of my life these fears were restricted to nocturnal hours.

But anxiety soon began creeping in and affecting me socially, too, not long after I began primary school.

When I was six years old, in the first grade, there was this girl I liked - her name was Diana. I went about telling everyone how Diana and I were going to get married and go on a honeymoon to Bermuda (the Beach Boys song, Kokomo, was very popular then, and a favorite of mine, with its lyrics, "Bermuda, Bahamas, come on pretty mama..."). Diana was a second grader - way more mature than a first grader - and she was horrified that this little first grader was going around telling everyone how he was going to marry her. Eventually she told me flat out in front of a bunch of other people by the swing set in the recess yard that she was NOT going to marry me, and burst my bubble (although I still thought I could change her mind).

For the next couple of months after that, I imagined every lunchtime that the entire school cafeteria, filled with its cacophony of other students' mealtime laughter and chatter, was ALL directed squarely at ME; they were all talking about me, about how foolish I'd been, and about how funny it was that Diana had roundly rejected me. And they were laughing at me. I felt ashamed.

Still, I kept getting into trouble, and kept proclaiming my love to the girls I liked, for a few more years, but events conspired to undermine my extraversion and plunge me into a doubt and a hesitation that began to naturally stalk me everywhere I went. Eventually my outgoing personality faded, though my defiance remained, with me only following the rules enough not to get in trouble, but never liking it.

Things changed in seventh grade, when the pretty girls, even the eighth grade pretty girls (a big deal for a seventh grader), started asking me on dates, and the cool kids started trying to hang out with me and inviting me to their parties. Suddenly, like a light had been switched on, everyone wanted to be around me and hang out with me.

But all I could say to these overtures was no.

Because by then, I had something that would plague me for over a decade more, and nearly claimed my life on multiple occasions, either through my own hand, or through my own recklessness with my mortality to prove my worth to myself. That something that plagued me and froze me and gnawed at me was this:

A gripping, paralyzing social phobia.

I did not just dabble with anxiety; anxiety ruled over me like a cruel king, limiting my freedom and keeping me locked away deep in the dungeon of my mind.

So I stood there, watching the people around me live their lives as my teenage years wore on, wishing that I could live a real life too, and knowing that the only thing that stopped me from doing so wasn't even real; it was this barrier in my head.

Anxiety as a Mental Affliction

I didn't know it until I was in my late twenties, but my mother suffered from depression and anxiety attacks all throughout my childhood. She'd always seemed happy and in control to me, but unknown to me she'd sometimes slip away into my parents' bedroom, shut the door, and just cry for no reason. She'd been suicidal. She'd had to go on medication.

I never knew. She always seemed like the perfect mom... she never let her problems show through.

My mother's mother, an American born of Irish stock, was, and still is, bipolar, and very likely borderline. When my mother was growing up, one moment her mother would be yelling and cursing at her for breaking something or getting into some trouble, as children do, or even for walking too heavily on the floor above; a minute later she'd be singing, free as a bird.

My father's father, a German immigrant, had had an extreme personality as well, cutting off his family and divorcing my father's French-born, British-raised mother, leaving them penniless and alone, and creating so many enemies that eventually one of them murdered him, running him down in a pickup truck when my father was only 14. To get around the provision in the law that invalidated a last will and testament leaving nothing to one's children, he left one dollar each to each of his sons, so that the will would stand and his hated ex-wife would have no access to the fortune he inherited from wealthy European ancestors after he died. According to my father, not long before he died, he mentioned wanting to change it, but his foe whisked his life away before he did.

Yet to me, growing up, despite the familial background of extremity and wild emotions, my parents had been the perfect picture of the traditional American family. My mother stayed at home, taking care of the children and the house, loving and cheerful; my father worked long hours and brought home the bacon. They almost never fought, our home was always impeccable and spotless, we had more toys and books and good things than anyone could ask for. My father was the stern-but-loving disciplinarian (with whom I frequently found myself in hot debate), while my mother was the big softie. Even today, when I've had friends or girlfriends meet my family, their impression has always been, "Wow, I REALLY like your family!" According to girlfriends I've had, most families in America are not nearly as close as mine.

So I frequently wondered where on Earth my anxiety came from. I was so outgoing when I was very young; how had I become crippled by phobias as I grew older?

The current research suggests the following as causes for anxiety problems:

• Genetic inheritance (e.g., chemical issues in the brain)
  
• Environmental inheritance from chronically anxious parents
• Trauma leading to chronic anxiety
  

From the Wikipedia article on anxiety:

“An evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance regarding potential threats in the environment as well as increased tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. This may cause false positive reactions but an individual suffering from anxiety may also avoid real threats. This may explain why anxious people are less likely to die due to accidents.”

In essence, the theory here is that higher levels of anxiety lead to increased vigilance (being on edge for danger; defensiveness), leading to the individual being more careful, taking fewer risks, and ultimately having a lower chance of encountering real harm and danger.

The article goes on to note that infants displaying higher vigilance and fear responses have been shown to have increased sensitivity in their nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain that regulates pleasure, addiction, laughter, aggression, reward, and fear.

But a restriction of risks doesn't only limit the chance to be harmed; it also limits the chance to gain victories, triumphs, achievements, and success... as many of the greatest rewards coming following great risks, too. Thus, anxiety serves as the great limiter - of both risks and rewards.

And it can be gotten through blood; through life; or even through simply your parents having it, and you picking up on it.

And once you have it, it can very quickly seize control of your heart and mind, keeping you "safe" from risk and reward... and imprisoning you inside the very place those cold and timid souls Theodore Roosevelt mentions in his immortal line know so very well, never to escape.

More women have anxiety than men, but I'd have to argue (much respect to our female readers) that anxiety in men is worse.

Not to get into any kind of "who's the better victim" competition (no desire to promote victim mentality here), and anxious women certainly have a host of problems in their own right. But anxious women have one leg up on anxious men, and it's a big one: they can still get dates, lovers, and relationships.

The most anxious woman in the world will still have men come up to her, ask her out, guide her through the date, take her as a lover, and enter into relationships with her. She may be anxious, but all she has to do is keep saying, "Okay," and eventually she'll get there.

For the anxious man, there's no such reprieve. Anxiety in men, in extreme form, can lead to isolation, loneliness, and abandonment. Even when girls ask you out, they aren't going to make the move on dates, or make things happen to get together with you; in the end, your anxiety still wins the day.

That's what the case was for me, in any event, but I recognized early on that the only way I was going to beat my fear was to look it in the face unblinking until it went away.

The earliest memory I have of confronting a fear of mine was at the age of five, after I awoke from a terrifying nightmare wanting to run to my mother, only to find that one of the creatures from my dream was standing in the doorway to my room, semi-transparent, blocking my way out (I've done some research, and it's actually fairly common for children to hallucinate before or after sleep, so it's not just me). I walked up to it, yelled, "You're not real!" right in its face, and ran right through it, out of the room. I never had another hallucination again.

In grade eight, I made myself ask out the girl I liked, the prettiest, most popular girl in school, who'd asked me out before months earlier, but I'd turned her down. When I went back and asked her out, it was in front of the entire school, since I couldn't seem to find a better opportunity than that. She said "no," but every guy in the class seemed to think I had balls of steel for doing it (it'd taken me 7 months and countless nights and days obsessing over it to work up the courage, though). I knew I didn't want to regret not asking her out, and I knew that, no matter what she said, at least I'd be able to look back in the future and say, "I did it; I tried."

In high school I strode along the ledge of the Mayan temple Chichen-Itza, 80 feet above a sheer drop to the jungle floor, the safe part of the small ledge occupied by fearful tourists clinging to the sides of the structure, leaving nothing but a tiny edge for me. If I was going to rid myself of the fear of heights I'd developed after tumbling down a moving escalator at a young age, I needed to confront that fear head on and chance death, I reasoned.

I walked through the ghetto of the city with the highest murder rate in America wearing a tan trench coat, two weeks after the Columbine massacre had made trench coats (albeit, black trench coats) an object of fear throughout the country.

I stood in the middle of a busy four-lane road with cars whizzing by me uncaring on either side going in opposite directions, some of them coming so close, so fast, that they brushed my clothes.

I did a number of things to challenge my fears and confront my anxiety. I don't advise this, at least not as dangerous and unpredictable as some of the things I did were, and I'll tell you right now the way I went about it was foolish. One slip on that pyramid ledge, one wrong glance in that ghetto, one driver not paying complete attention on that road, and I would not be writing this today. A lot of the adventures I've since had would never have happened. There would be no Girls Chase.

But I share these with you to make a point: you don't beat anxiety by willing yourself through it; you beat it by confronting it.

Anxiety in Men: A Silver Lining

So how do you get rid of anxiety?

Well, truth is - you don't. It never goes away completely.

Personally, I'm still a somewhat anxious person. I'm just not anxious about a lot of the things I used to be anxious about, is all, and I don't spend time obsessing over it anymore. In fact, most of the time, I am content, calm, confident... Zen.

Yet, every now and again, in some quiet moment, it begins to creep back in, and whisper doubts to me. But in all but the most extreme circumstances, I no longer listen.

And the good news is, in my opinion, anxiety makes you stronger than non-anxious individuals if you can overcome it.

Answer me this - who would you place more trust in in a dire, certainty-of-death type situation:

• A man who had struggled with fear and anxiety before, and overcome it, and now was confident and used to winning, or

• A man who had never known defeat, who had always been confident of success, and was accustomed to winning

Me, I'd take the guy who's known fear and known apprehension, and overcome it, over the man who never really has, any day. Because the man who's always won is an unknown - you don't know how he's going to react to defeat or impossible odds. And chances are, because it's an unfamiliar feeling for him, it'll break him... at least for a while. And getting broken when you're learning is fine, but getting broken in the hour of need is bad business.

The man who's struggled and overcome usually is the stronger man, because he has been on the wrong side of success and knows how to deal with it. His confidence is based on control of his thoughts and beliefs, rather than on purely a history of victories.

He not only wins. He knows how to win, and he knows how to deal with uncertainty, anxiety, and defeat.

An anxious disposition offers you a number of advantages less anxious individuals lack:

1. Attention to detail that you simply can't get with lower levels of vigilance

2. Social tuning and social intuition that, again, stems from that high degree of vigilance

3. Resilience to setbacks that comes from having suffered "more" setbacks (likely the same in number and objective severity, but felt more strongly and more viscerally) than men without much anxiety

4. Habitual fear confrontation that eventually becomes a very strong trait, because it leads to confronting and eliminating weaknesses regularly by necessity, turning originally weaker individuals into ultimately stronger ones

The last point is interesting to think about. Take two men, one without anxiety, and one with. Let's say the man without anxiety has fears to the following extent:

1. Women: he's not afraid to ask girls out or escalate things with them, only to let go of a girl he's invested heavily in when things go south in a long relationship.

2. Career: he's not afraid to apply for jobs, interview, or ask his boss for a raise; he's only afraid to quit his job and start his own company, or to go back to school to get a better job (for fear of losing momentum in his career trajectory).

And let's say the anxiety-prone man has the following fears:

1. Women: he can't even talk to girls and is paralyzed by approach anxiety.
   

2. Career: he's afraid to apply or interview, for fear of rejection; can't talk to his boss about a raise; and certainly can't leave his job for any reason.

For the man with anxiety to get going at all, he needs to learn to overcome his anxiety to some degree. Many men only do this somewhat, and stop; but some men, once they've done a little bit, go further; then further; then further still.

In fact, they go so far that they start confronting fears that ordinary men without anxiety have, and can't get around. Pretty soon, even the things that most people fear seem silly to them.

Not every man with anxiety does this; but enough do - and once you're in the habit of confronting fears and demolishing them, you eventually start to get a bizarre affinity for feeling fear - and facing it head on.

It's this part of the process I want to focus on to help you beat your own anxiety.

Learning to Relish Fighting Fear

I don't know when exactly it happened, but I realized some years back that I had trained myself, unconsciously, to become excited at feeling fear, for I saw it as an opportunity to confront another weakness and wipe it away, becoming an even stronger man.

My emotional / thought process these days goes like this:

Fear: Oh no! This super muscular, angry-looking Canadian customs and border security guard is grilling me hard... what if he thinks I'm some kind of international terrorist and puts me in a Canadian prison cell? I don't even know anyone in Canada who can bail me out!

Excitement: Ha HA! Listen to my weak, pathetic self. This is an EXCELLENT opportunity for me to go through the fire, be tested, and come out stronger. To battle!

Conscious Mind: Oh - looks like Fear and Excitement are in the process of sorting out some new perceived threat. Hope they can iron this one out fast so I can get back to just dealing with this situation like a calm, cool, rational human being.

What this does is it leads to automatic fear confrontation - that is, when you encounter something that strikes fear into your heart, you don't freeze... you don't run away... you engage.

Reason?

Because you're training yourself to be unafraid.

It's a simple process, and it works. The steps are this:

1. Feel your fear and admit it. You have to be able to consciously recognize that you're feeling fear or anxiety and own up to it. You can't make excuses for yourself, or this doesn't work, and you're stuck in neutral until you get more honest. If you're having trouble reading your emotions, just ask yourself what you REALLY want to have happen, and why you're not in the process of making that happen right now. As soon as you know it, say to yourself inside, "Okay, I'm afraid. I'm acting nervous and afraid and being weak right now."
   

   Don't justify it ("Well, I have a reason to be afraid, because..."). Don't scold it ("I SHOULDN'T be afraid, because...!"). Don't try and piece together some grand strategy ("Okay, so what I need to do right now is..."). Skip all of those, and go immediately to the next step in the process, namely...

2. Tell yourself it's time to beat this fear. The problem with fear and anxiety is that the thing you are afraid of feels tough, or scary, or unpredictable, or confusing. The instant you make it about the fear, though, the fear largely vanishes. Why? Because you know what you have to do: you have to confront it. You have to go do the thing you're fearing doing. Then,

3. Take action. Take action and confront the fear. Obviously, don't take your life in your hands like reckless teenage me, but DO get moving and go confront it right now. See a pretty girl? Feel fear because you're not sure how to meet her? Go take action to beat that fear - go talk to her right now. Want to start going to nightclubs but no friends to go with and they seem like intimidating places? Feel that fear, then take action and go anyway.
   

4. Take away your ability to back out. The first time anyone asked me to travel abroad, I felt gripped with fear; there was so much unknown, so many things that could go wrong... so I immediately said "yes" and committed myself to doing it. Whenever I set new, scary goals for myself - pickup goals, business goals, anything goals - the first thing I do is set a hard limit: "Do this, and you can't come home until you do," "Do that, or no more vacations until you do," "Finish this, and you cannot start anything new until you do," etc. Whatever it is that you WANT to do, make it so that you cannot do it until you've finished the thing that you are pushing yourself to do.

The emotion is normally split-second: fear ("Oh no!"), excitement ("Okay, let's do it!"), action (doing it, or removing the ability to back out if it takes a while to do, then doing it)... then done. All in the snap of a pair of fingers.

Willing Yourself to Vanquish Anxiety

You cannot will yourself to victory. That's impossible. You will run out of gas long before you reach the finish line.

However, what you can do is will yourself to remove the obstacles in your way before you start the race. Push the hurdles off the path, and suddenly the race ahead looks a whole lot easier, and a lot more fun.

You must train yourself to feel fear, laugh at it, and fight it like a champion.

For every man is born with fear; some more than others, but it's there in each of us. The men who get what they want out of life are not the ones born with less fear, but the ones better able to tackle and defeat the fear they have.

And once you've vanquished a fear enough times, your brain does what it does best: picks up on patterns - and recognizes that there isn't anything there to fear at all.

Then, suddenly, one day, out of the blue, seemingly, that thing that used to freeze you in your tracks and stop you in your boots doesn't even catch your attention anymore. And you don't even realize it until you notice, "Hey, I just asked my boss for a raise and I didn't even think about it," or, "Whoa! I just asked that girl out and it was completely on autopilot!"

Your brain is a pattern recognition machine, and it learns that there isn't anything to fear there once it's seen a situation often enough. But it won't learn at all if it never gets to see those situations up close and personal - so go get it some data to play with.

Go confront your fears.

(Just, ideally not in the middle of traffic or on the side of a pyramid or somewhere a lot of people get shot / stabbed / mugged. Can't get girls chasing you when you're six feet under!)

Yours,
Chase