Dear Lindsey:

“my body has been used to the fight or flight for years”- this is what anxiety is. In nature, animals feel fear when they notice a predator or some dangerous situation, like a fire. But many animals feel fear again and again all through their waking hours, looking out for a predator, like birds moving their heads left and right, right and left, looking for a potential predator, or deer eating in the field, looking up once in a while to check if there is a predator approaching. So anxiety, as in ongoing, repeating fear- without the presence of danger- is not limited to humans or to captivity. It is the condition of many animals free, in nature.

Some of us humans feel more anxiety than others, or we feel anxiety in a particular situation while others in that situation are calm. But those who are calm in that particular situation, are anxious in a different situation. No one escapes anxiety for long. We all manage it the best we can with work routine, other routine, distractions, drugs, legal or prescribed and so on.

“my body is just reacting to things differently than some people”- your body reacts to things the same as all other people, just not at the same time, same situation, or at the same intensity in this or that situation. There is nothing about your brain and body that is out of the normal human experience: your brain is made of the same neurons that make all other human brains, connections between neurons are made the same way, hormones are the same, and everything that we experience can be explained by the same human  biochemical and physiological processes.

I hope you are having an okay (or better) day at work today.

anita