Well - there's anxiety and then there's ANXIETY!!!!!

Yes, everyone experiences anxiety in their lives. Folks stress about jobs, money, family, all kinds of stuff. But, it's typically a focused worry and it's not all consuming. It's hard for people that experience "normal" anxiety to really understand what it's like to suffer from an anxiety disorder.

Then, there's ANXIETY!!!! That's where you worry about things to the point of it affecting your daily life. You have concrete physical symptoms - shaking, nausea, sweating, dissociating, feeling a desire to flee, difficulty breathing, racing heart, etc. That's when it's time to seek treatment of some kind. I've worked for years with a therapist, but didn't see really marked improvement until I also got on medication. The combination of medication and therapy has helped me tremendously.

In direct response to your question - for me, anxiety is constant, repetitive thoughts and motions. It's a terror that seizes me for no obvious reason, and causes me to either freeze or have a strong urge to just escape. I get an upset stomach, my hands shake, my pulse races, I struggle to breathe. My brain shuts down and I'm stuck in an axiety loop, where higher thought is nearly impossible. Then, I start to dissociate...it feels like my body isn't even connected to me and I mentally just check out.

I think this little comic does a great job explaining anxiety! Apologies for the terrible image quality - I?m...