The fear in the pit of Niharika Hiremath’s stomach would not go away. Even as she lay on the couch after a long day at work, it was there. Her palms were sweaty, her heart was pumping and she felt sick.
The biomedical science student was about 18 when she first experienced anxiety symptoms.
At first the stress was rooted in real events. There was a breakup and pressure to succeed. But as life started to get better, she did not.
“As soon as I woke up in the morning, I had a feeling like something was going to go wrong,” she said.
While older Australians die of heart attacks and dementia, mental health disorders are taking a heavy toll on children and younger adults.
A new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report has revealed anxiety disorders are the leading cause of ill health and death in girls and women aged five to 44.
Anxiety could start appearing in people at a very young age, said Dr Lyn O’Grady from the Australian Psychological Society, manifesting in physical symptoms such as headache, tantrums, or refusing to go to school.
Recent research has found that in less than a decade, mental health presentations to some emergency departments have tripled among those aged 10 to 19.
Professor Harriet Hiscock, a paediatrician with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, said parents were bringing their children to hospital without realising they were experiencing anxiety or depression.
“They thought the panic attacks were seizures, or the recurrent tummy aches were a physical problem, when really it was anxiety,” she said.
– Aisha Dow
Read more: The worrying mental health trend affecting Australians
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