Do you ever look at a mother-daughter pair and instantly see the inherited feature? In my family, the similarity runs psychologically – something which we only discovered recently.
Of course, we all carry traits from our parents, but when something as obscure as a physical manifestation of anxiety presents itself in the family tree, it’s worth looking into.
Having personally battled with anxiety-induced nausea for nearly 10 years, I previously felt lost at my lack of diagnosis and sound clinical reasoning.
I’ve always noted my mum’s anxieties (and utter horror when we didn’t respond to a text within five minutes) and assumed that was down to her maternal instincts.
It wasn’t until I learned about her frequency of fainting out of stress that I realised the connection between her symptoms and mine. I am a carbon copy of my mum. We inhabit this almost sick empathic anxiety wrought by fear – and it’s debilitating.
After discussing the similarities, my mum reflected on her experience growing up. She commented on her own mother’s reaction to anxiety, which often leads to her personality falling in on itself and becoming extremely quiet.
When speaking with my grandma about this, she mentioned her tendency to spiral into fainting spells and the need to lie on the floor, citing worries as becoming magnified until a physical reaction transpires.
For my mum and I, we noted that it’s a control issue where we can’t fathom that other people do not mind ‘going with the flow’, as opposed to having every minute and detail planned.
Anxiety is thought to be about 30% inherited. “We’ve seen time and time again in studies of families that anxiety does run in families,” says Anna Bauer, a UNC Health psychiatric epidemiologist.
“Children of parents who have a diagnosed anxiety disorder can be as much as seven times more likely to develop an anxious disorder themselves.”
When something as specific as a physical manifestation of anxiety appears across multiple family members, it suggests a potential familial predisposition or shared environmental influences.
But while familial patterns can indicate a shared vulnerability to anxiety, each individual’s experience with anxiety is unique.
Our anxieties, for instance, present somatically. Me: vomiting, mum: fainting, grandmother: fainting.
But why does it pass down through generations?
Wendy Dignan, a psychologist specialising in anxiety, says we always come back to the nature-nurture debate: is anxiety a mental health issue that we’re born with, or is it something we practice and learn to do?
She tells me: “If you’re anxious, your children are at a much higher risk, but the research is always torn between environmental and biological factors.
“Anxiety is built in layers, so it’s never just one thing. The layers are made up of genes – a heritable disposition to stress, a trauma or an environmental influence and the other factor, particularly with women, is hormones.”
Dignan suggests anxious parents may “teach” children anxious behaviours that they believe are the way to navigate curveballs successfully.
“As most types of anxiety are based on worrying and overthinking, this is what the children will copy from their parent as a way to stay safe; except it doesn’t keep them safe, it creates anxiety,” she adds.
Studies also show that children can inherit overactive brain circuits, making them more susceptible to anxiety and depressive disorders.
In a study conducted by Harvard University, researchers found that experiences at a very young age, when the brain is developing the most, could cause the most significant impact on our susceptivity to anxious behaviours.
A study by the University of Cambridge suggested women are almost twice as likely as men to experience anxiety. But why is this the case? Dignan suggests one possible explanation is differences in sex hormones – specifically, oestrogen and testosterone.
“These levels vary and often go to less than is optimally needed. When we’re more stressed, we’re more likely to tip over into anxiety because the chemicals released into our bloodstream mean our brain presses the emergency button and releases adrenaline and cortisol to put us in a peak state,” she says.
In addition to hormonal differences, University of Cambridge researchers suggested differences in brain chemistry, as well as differences in how men and women cope with stress, could also play a role.
Dignan suggests women are more inclined to worry, ruminate and hold things in their heads, whereas men have a more action-oriented philosophy towards problems.
“The difference between how, typically, men and women problem-solve is both biological (we’re born that way) and learned behaviour (social cues); nature and nurture,” she explains.
“Action (more male behaviour) makes us feel we’re doing what we can to control a situation and reduces the risk of anxiety. Feeling in control is a key element of anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling of being out of control as it’s a fear we’re not in control of.”
Whilst I am yet to have children, if at all, I am already worried about passing down my anxious behaviours – especially when, to me, they’re subconscious.
I cannot control when I throw up due to anxiety, and am still yet to find something that stops this. But already, the concern about passing down an already debilitating disease to someone so young and innocent is off-putting.
It’s impossible to hide anxiety from children as they’re like sponges, even toddlers, says Dignan.
“The best thing to do is to explain anxiety to them as soon as they have some cognitive flexibility,” she explains, advising that parents might want to have these conversations with kids from the age of seven onwards.
The expert adds that acknowledging your anxious episodes won’t make them more likely to happen, but it’s good practice to couple these conversations with positive statements about the realities of anxiety.
Reflecting on my experience with inherited anxiety, I feel fortunate to have discovered our shared trait. If I had known earlier along in my battle then I would have found solace in our situation, but I now appreciate the conversations this has created as a result.
While I’m cautious of what the future may hold, I’m thankful that talking about it with loved ones who share these similar experiences can help, in a way, to make us feel less alone.