What Is Anxiety?

Many people experience anxiety symptoms without realizing how far beyond “normal” they’ve become. This often happens when anxiety is normalized in their environment—perhaps the people around them minimize these symptoms, or they grew up surrounded by others who experienced similar struggles. When something is common in your surroundings, it’s easy to mistake it for harmless.

Often, people come to me describing problems that don’t sound like anxiety at first. For example, they might say they struggle with sleep, sometimes severe insomnia. They might insist, “It’s gotten better. I don’t think it’s a problem anymore. I now only go a couple of days without sleep, compared to before when I went two weeks.”

But sleep issues can be a major red flag. Poor sleep hygiene is one of the clearest indicators of anxiety and is often linked to unresolved life experiences, sometimes even past trauma. In many cases, anxiety itself is just a symptom of deeper, unaddressed wounds.

Some people experience full-blown anxiety attacks without even recognizing what they are. To outsiders, these individuals may simply seem “on edge” or like they “worry too much.” The truth is, these are treatable symptoms. With the right help, people can not only feel better, they can thrive, just as someone with a physical injury heals with proper care.

If you broke your leg, you wouldn’t wait weeks before seeing a doctor, right? So why do we treat mental and emotional wounds differently? The brain registers emotional pain in the same way it registers physical pain, yet many learn to “just live with it.” Over time, they adapt to the discomfort, just as someone with a broken leg might try to limp through life.

Part of the problem is societal. We’ve normalized emotional pain, overused certain mental health terms, and unintentionally minimized the struggles of those truly suffering. People may seek help for things like relationship difficulties without realizing that deeper emotional wounds, such as anxiety, are affecting how they communicate and connect.

Therapy helps uncover the roots of these problems. Anxiety is often just the visible tip of a much larger, hidden structure of unresolved experiences and negative thought patterns.

This is why I’m passionate about supporting individuals in regaining control over their emotional well-being, breaking free from negative thinking loops, and finding relief from anxiety. Healing is possible, and it starts with recognizing that your pain matters.