Dear Strawberry:

“do you think what I’m going through is just normal stress/ anxiety in day to day life or is this some sort of disorder?”-

– there is no clear distinction between “normal” and “disorder”- we are all stressed and anxious, some more than others at any particular hour, day, week, or year; some people’s stress and anxiety is particular to a specific situation, such as the workplace situation (which seems to be your case ?), and other people’s anxiety extend to almost all situations in their day-to-day life.

Mental disorders are artificial categories of symptoms decided by psychiatrists- a way to sort out symptoms into groups so to charge insurance companies in an orderly, efficient way, and so to devise a plan of treatment. In reality, all humans suffer from the same core issues, to different extents, showing an almost endless variety of individuals collections of symptoms caused by those same core issues.

Is this helpful to you?

anita