For me, my social anxiety is fundamentally a self-esteem issue. I'm always anxious about how I'm going to cope and deal with events, tasks, and people -- because deep down I just don't seem to truly believe.

Someone in real life who admitted to having GAD told me they also felt that all anxiety was essentially a lack of trust in oneself. I don't know, but it sounds plausible. It certainly is true for me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that many of the techniques for coping with anxiety deal with the immediate symptoms and distress, but don't fix the underlying thought processes that can lead to it.

I'm a real severe case with a lifelong issue that has resisted most "professional" treatment. But it has gotten more manageable in the last couple of years in that I am doing more and feel a bit better about myself. It was brutally hard, and still is. But there is hope that things can get better, even for people like us.