The OP shared that his wife struggles with ptsd. So, that's more complex than an anxiety disorder. Some individuals can have it worse than others so there is no true all people with Xchallenge are XYZ. What can trigger one individual with ptsd can be very different than what may trigger another person struggling with ptsd, a lot depends on what kind of trauma a person experienced.

For example, I was a lead singer in a band, and I had some crazy guy from the audience rush on stage and attack me and others had to pull him off of me. That STILL is something I deal with in the ptsd I suffer from amongst other things that are not things that may trigger someone else. My agent got me alone and tried to molest me. That's not something another person is going to understand, I had a lot more than "just" anxiety about performing on stage or feeling safe with an agent, I had actual trauma related challenges that contributed to my not feeling "safe" in that career. I played the guitar and wrote songs too. I just froze, the guy pulled me right down on stage attacking me until they pulled him off. It left me changed, fearing how some person could suddenly charge on stage like that, you never feel the same after something like that. And it left me sensitive to anyone charging at me and invading my space too.

When my daughter was young I even wrote songs for the girl scouts. They asked me to go on stage and perform with my guitar and sing a song I wrote for a big gathering. No ONE knew what it took for me to do that, be on stage and sing again like that. Sigh...just that memory of what I had experienced that traumatized me, not something people shared back then, not just stage fright, not anxiety, but not wanting to feel or be reminded of the trauma I had experienced that forever changed something I had once loved doing. What may be a genuine challenge to one person may mean nothing to another, especially back then when no one talked about ptsd challenges that happen after a trauma like they do now. One person can have a lot more trauma related issues than another. When people say "oh I have ptsd I know", that's not necessarily true, a lot depends of the amount of trauma involved and one person can have ptsd worse than another person.