Deep Worry

 I’m not sure if my grandmother experienced this, but I know that both my mother and I often struggle with constant worry. This tends to manifest as overthinking or imagining worst-case scenarios, where our minds become overwhelmed with "what if" thoughts and a strong need for reassurance. I’ve learned that this pattern of thinking can be a sign of neuroticism, which is believed to have a genetic basis. Research shows high genetic correlations for lifetime GAD and neuroticism are 1.00 in males and 0.58 in females, with an overall correlation of 0.80, indicating a complete overlap of shared genes (Gottschalk & Domschke, 2017). This shows genetic links between GAD and neuroticism, and how these mental health issues can be connected through shared genetic factors.