Kendall Jenner Shared Her Struggle With Anxiety — Here’s Why We Need to Listen

Carrie Fisher would be proud.

On her app, Kendall Jenner opened up about her struggles with anxiety during the past year.

“Anxiety was a huge hurdle for me to deal with this year (and security concerns didn’t help). But I think I’m finally learning how to cope,” the model and reality television star wrote.

“I once had a really bad [panic] attack on a plane and just had to ride it out. I felt my heart beating a million miles an hour and I even went a little numb,” she wrote in another post.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million Americans ages 18 and older — a whopping 18 percent of the population.

In other words, if you have an anxiety disorder, you’re not alone — and you certainly shouldn’t feel any shame in talking about it.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an anxiety disorder is any kind of anxiety that does not “go away” and can worsen over time. There are different types of anxiety disorders, including generalized (characterized by feeling restless, wound-up, easily fatigued, and difficulty concentrating or sleeping), panic disorders (recurrent and unexpected panic attacks that involve sudden periods of intense fear that may include palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate; sweating, trembling, or shaking; sensations of shortness of breath; and feelings of impending doom), and social anxiety disorder (a feeling of anxiousness about being with other people and feelings of extreme self-consciousness around others, including worries about feeling humiliated, embarrassed, or rejected by others). Anxiety disorders are typically treated with psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of both.

“Anxiety is the emotion you experience when there is something in your future environment that you want to avoid. When you are focused on the thing you want to avoid, you experience anxiety and stress,” Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin, explains to Yahoo Beauty. “Everyone experiences anxiety or stress sometimes. That is a natural part of having things in the world that are unpleasant that you are hoping to avoid.”

And he reiterates just how common anxiety is.

“At any given moment, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the adult population is suffering from depression and/or generalized anxiety depression,” he emphasizes.

Markman also explains that when it comes to managing anxiety, a critical component is for the person suffering from it to be able to break the cycle of what is called rumination, the continuing rounds of negative thinking that keep the anxiety at a heightened state. Although rumination can feel significant for an anxiety sufferer, Markman notes that it can be managed by mindfulness techniques, physical exercise, and conversations with loved ones or a therapist. For those with more severe anxiety, medication is an important additional component of treatment to allow a break in the cycle.

Which is why conversations such as the one Jenner has started about anxiety are such an essential first step. You can’t begin to seek out the help you may need if you can’t articulate what you’re experiencing.

Given how common anxiety disorders are, sharing your own experiences might help facilitate treatment in and of itself when you learn that you certainly aren’t the only one experiencing periods of intense worry — and that it’s something you can effectively learn to live with.

Or, as writer and author of the memoir Hi, Anxiety, Kat Kinsman, tells Yahoo Beauty, “Depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses can be so incredibly isolating. Because we’re not encouraged to talk openly about them, it can often seem as if you’re the only one out there feeling this particular way. Since the stigma is so widespread, people suffering from these conditions might feel like they have to work hard to cover it up and overcompensate, just to seem ‘normal.'”

She continues, “It’s physically and emotionally exhausting — and it also means that they might not get the help they deserve. When people in the spotlight stand up and put a human face on the issue, it makes it a little easier for the rest of us to realize we’re not alone and don’t have to be ashamed. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.”

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