Can you not be aware of your anxiety?

According to both my psychiatrist and psychologist, it is believed that I am a very highly anxious person, primarily as a result of my childhood. And it's not that I don't believe them because it makes perfect logical sense and it would explain so many of my avoidances. But I've never really felt anxious or noticed any kind of panic attack until the last couple of weeks. I had just never noticed. So is it possible to be highly anxious and yet completely oblvious ?

For the past two weeks I occasionally had heightened feelings of anxiety come out of nowhere. I don't know if it's my depression getting worse or not but I've never had these problems in the past.

I think this fits me to a T. Always anxious since childhood. Somewhat aware of it to different extents with regard to different stimuli that caused anxiety, but never aware that it was a general problem I had until it got really bad.

Yes it is.

Several people have told me recently that I looked very anxious. They could tell by my body language. I was totally unaware of what I was doing until they pointed it out. Once it was brought to my attention, I realised how anxious I actually felt at the time.

It's weird, I know.

Bluey

I have for a long time denied that I have been anxious -- I thought it was all depression giving me worries and keeping me from sleeping. Since then I have learned that my worries are excessive and wax and wane separately from the depression, that anxiety keeps wakes me up at night and that the crying fits come with panic attacks.

I have for a long time had therapists attempt to tell me that I an anxious due to an avoidance personality. Always denied it, but lately I am trying to understand how this less than obvious anxiety intrudes into my thoughts,

Ordinarily, I'd say no, because it sounds ridiculous... anxiety is felt... you get all the symptoms that are kind of impossible to ignore... but that said... I've had this for so many years, that it's now normal to me... wake up... anxious all day... bed... wake up... anxious all day... bed... etc So yeh, I have panic attacks like kids eat sweets.. I just sometimes don't realise I'm that bad, until I start speaking really fast or slurring like a drunk, or pacing, or... list goes on. So yeh... I guess it is possible, but initially? IDK about initially, to me that sounds odd... but, it seems to be a thing. 'o.O Very strange.. human body is weird.

I didn't think it did happen, though apparently it does.... And a lot.... Unless everyone here is completely wrong and for some reason I doubt that.

I was going to reply that it may be possible not to know you have had anxiety ever since your childhood. But, you may have found or had someone point out to you in an abrupt fashion that you are different to a lot of others.

Thus, you might force yourself to try to do activities that other more confident and outgoing people do but you may find that you are not really having a good time.

This way it is possible to not realize you have anxiety until you are diagnosed.

Yes... hit me in the face at full speed in 2009... along with several others issues.... I did not realize this until my regular DR asked... Are you an anxious person? ... well yeah... I always thought I was just impatient... ROFL

Decades ago, when I was younger, something was wrong but I didn't know what. I remember the first time I came upon a description of what was called "anxiety" (there was no DSM yet, few of the existing diagnoses...no antidepressants...) and, well I recognized the inner experience (this is looking at Mercks Manual) --symptoms described but I could not connect.
Not for a long time---I "got" some of it intellectually but it was a long time before the feeling and the symptoms clicked and I Knew. Someone gave me some Valium, it was awful at the time, I couldn't move but my mind raced and I was angry at the time anyway--dismissed with stupid pills, I flushed them and waited a couple of decades, struggling along...
Few would have described me as anxious. Maybe no one. It wasn't visible till I spoke it/ --- unfortunately, the worst was yet to come but all in all
the journey has been ....instructive---like, I could be in a total panic,numb from waist to foot, out of "this" world and I could function---in a stressful clinical setting with people remarking on my infinite calm. (and so, my social withdrawals and silences were misinterpreted by some as aloofness or lack of interest/...so wrong but I could not explain, or even try to----------)
Sometimes I wish I never made the "click"---
like the GD sing "...there is a road/no simple highway between the dawn and the dark of night/and if you go no one may follow/that path is for your steps alone...

The "click" opened a can of ----------no, it opened my personal Pandora's Box

I believe the answer is yes. We aren't always in tune to our bodies. Also if we experience feelings growing up and into adulthood we believe that what we are feeling is the 'norm'.

Earth without art is just Eh

Short answer...yes. I think that for a lot of us it goes on a long time before we finally become aware of it. Painfully aware

I think it's very possible.

I never thought of myself as an anxious person. I had a bit of claustrophobia once when I was underneath a house pulling phone wire during an earthquake, so when I was going into a closed MRI exam they gave me something--just in case. I didn't need it.
When my pdoc raised the Cymbalta to 90 mg, I started hearing people calling my name at work ... only no one was. I would be in the Archives or an office or somewhere essentially alone. Soon, though, I became aware of hearing it out in the general rooms at work ... Now that I was listening. It was a very hushed voice, barely audible, yet distinctly my name.
I ask my pdoc, with trepedation, whether anything would have led him to expect me to start hearing voices, and he said I might--the size dose I was taking of Cymbalta could do that. Before long I was hearing it at night and unable to sleep because of it, so he eventually prescribed Ativan.
Later, when I told an old friend from college, she laughed and said I could have used those pill then. I was shocked. Then she reminded me that I'd barely made it through the acting requirement at any level--my stage fright became part of college lore. Funny, I never thought of that as anxiety--I guess because it only happened on stage.

roadie

I never thought of myself as an anxious person. I knew I had problems with depression, which is a big reason why I probably never considered anxiety, not even after I started having panic attacks. It wasn't until I left work (because of other mental health stuff) that I realized how bad my anxiety truly is. I literally cannot sit still. I always have to be doing something. If I'm not physically moving around, I have to be engaged in something. And even when I am doing something like watching a show, I am doing two other things at the same time.
I didn't really put the pieces together until I got sober, and then three years later started having a resurgence of my OCD, panic disorder/agoraphobia, and BPD, and then looked around at other members of my family. They all have it too. So at least I come by it honestly.