How do you describe anxiety?

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I've never considered myself an anxious person. Depressed and angry, but anxious? Nah. I'm chill. I don't stress about things much, and when I do, I tend to shut down. I'm very good at keeping anxiety away, or so I thought.
But then I read about alexithymia. I honestly don't know if I possess it or not, the main diagnosis of not being able to recognize my own emotions, because, really, who do I talk to about my feelings a lot? I'm not closed about them with my husband (I am with most other people), and I know I can be pretty dissociated from my emotions at times, but I dunno, talking about my emotions just seems...weird. It's obvious if I'm angry or sad, and I know beforehand if a situation's likely to make me emotional.

Anyways, there's an emotional state I experience frequently that has been the reason why I quit jobs and like to avoid visiting my family and sometimes friends or to go take part in hobbies. Just the thought of having to go to work, or go visit with, ugh, family...I dunno, can fill me with...dread? Is dread anxiety? I can't emphasize how awful the feeling is, this terrible sinking feeling and all I want is for it to go away, and for me to not have to do whatever task it is that I should be doing. It's very much an anticipatory feeling, it'll go away once I'm somewhere as long as I'm not brooding, and it goes away if I then don't go to work or visit people.

I wonder now if I'm confusing nervousness with anxiety? How are those emotions different from each other? I've never thought of myself as a particularly stressed person either, but I when I think about it now, that emotion is incredibly stressful. But I've never thought of stress as much of an individual emotion either, rather a conglomerate of emotions that are all kinda similar to anxiety.

First, thank you for mentioning alexithymia. I had never heard of it and according to the brief quiz I just took online I have many of the traits, so that is something I will research further. Second, the emotional state you describe sounds very much like what I experience and describe as anxiety. I am not sure there is enough difference among anxiety, dread and nervousness for a real differential diagnosis; either way, I personally would say that the feeling you describe is a feeling of anxiety.

I don't. Just read the wiki entry on alexithymia and it does fit me. Emotions are black and white to me. Or i feel good or I don't feel good. It will aggrevate me if I am pushed to explain and depending on who ask I might blow a fuse.

Depending on where I have to go I can get really stressed out. I usually procrastrinate till the last minute and more often than not am late for appointments. Non-essential things will just get put off. Like my water bill that is more than a week overdue.

I associate anxiety with adrenaline.

High anxiety = high adrenaline.

Sudden high anxiety is, essentially, a panic attack as an adrenaline rush hits the system and I can't process it.

Not sure how it relates to "nervousness" - maybe nervousness is low anxiety.

Dread of meeting family feels like a muffled muting of emotion. Meeting family induces anxiety.

Yes.



IMO, anxiety and stress are essentially the same thing, or slightly different stages of the same thing. It goes: Stress > Anxiety > Panic.

Anxiety is a more conscious manifestation of stress, some stresses can be more subtle and build slowly over a longer period of time. Stress can start almost unnoticeably, like a change in your job, requiring you to do something uncomfortable, that builds over time until you wake up tense and sick (dread) at the very thought of going to work.

Anxiety tends to be a more panicky type of stress that can arise quickly, as a sudden knee-jerk reaction and become more and more intense as one nears the stressor (person, place, thing or event) causing it. Anxiety often incapacitates me to the point that I cannot force myself to do something I know is vitally important. Sometimes I can power through it, sometimes it's an invisible steel wall.

There are only four primary emotions:

happy
sad
angry
afraid


We on the spectrum get sad and afraid a lot. And it's always to the extreme. With fear (which results in anxiety) a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy and also some drugs will help you.

Peace.

A constant restless gnawing. Constant hyperawareness, always on edge, and always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Always expecting to be blindsided by something bad.

In addition to these four, I have often heard of the emotion "disgust" used on a list of 5 primary emotions.

To the OP, I do experience that dread which makes me avoid things and I would call that experience anxiety.

The Alexithymia resonates with me as I can't read my own emotions other than a vague intellectual guess based on an energy I'm feeling.

I do have a hard time understanding my own anxiety since chronically diagnosed with it. Mine I think is based within thought, within considerable worry. A word or message in your mind gets stuck in your mind, I think and keep thinking of the significant negetivity of it.

Worry getting embarrassed, worry getting harmed, worry getting killed, always being on edge with people's words and actions.

I'd get a racing heartbeat, unable to keep still, do things, hallucinations that reinforces that negativeity, loss of appitite, can't think straight. A big trigger for migraines, nausea and an evacuation of the bowels as soon as it hits me.

There's no treatment but coping strategies I do have is an imaginary sentient friend Gwydion to reassure me I'll get back to my normal self. Avoiding stressors like stressful working conditions, planning ahead and removing the labels bad meanings with its positive ones.

See, explanations about anxiety like this one, that involves adrenaline and panic are what I think about when it comes to anxiety. And that's why I've never called myself an anxious person. Panic isn't something I do unless I'm really afraid, and then there's the adrenaline rush, and that doesn't really happen in social situations. I rather think that I'd be one of the level-headed people if I were in a crisis situation...as long as it doesn't involve fire. Even then I don't think I ever have or ever will experience a panic attack. Being super embarrassed (hardly ever happens) brings an adrenaline rushy type feeling and really liking someone romantically can bring a rush. I'd call that excitement then though, which is a similar emotion to this definition of anxiety as far as I'm concerned, except that it's positive. I also hardly ever experience that.


That makes perfect sense.
So then why do I only ever get anticipatory dread of situations or tasks? Once I'm in the situation I'm fine, which is just really confusing especially because I'm cognitively aware that I will be fine if I just suck it up and, say, go into work. I know I tend to get that dread only for a situation that is social on some level. Even if it's just doing a task and I feel overwhelmed with the dread of thinking about doing it, I think it only happens when that task will directly affect someone else and they'll know about it.

I wouldn't call my dread nervousness, it's nothing at all like having to do a speech or stage fright, which as pointed out, is kinda like an adrenaline rush.
I don't fully think it's the same as a slow build-up of stress, but that's a better analogue to what I feel in those circumstances than panic I'd say.

Well, I suppose I'm doing an alright job of explaining my emotions right now, and I think I have settled on a word for the way I feel then, 'dread'. But I still don't really feel like I'm a person who suffers from anxiety though, due to the lack aforementioned adrenaline-rush-type feelings. That and, in general, I AM low-key.

I sometimes think that I might be a lot worse than most people in dealing with stress and adrenaline-anxiousness, and so I have trained myself well to simply not get those feelings most of the time. I simply shut down if I'm stressed, consciously. Recently I had the thought that my emotional dissociation happens when I'm in a situation that would otherwise make me quite stressed, but that's not in my control.

Social situations for me, especially when growing up, there's almost like a...switch I can turn on so I'll act properly social. As a kid I remember thinking that I couldn't possibly have 1 personality because I'm a different person at church than at school than with my family than with friends than on my own. When I've been depressed that switch is nearly always off. Sometimes though, just being in a good social situation can turn it all around though. I feel like I'm an extrovert but thinks she's an introvert...or something.

Perhaps I just don't feel anxiousness in particular. I just remembered that I used to be a very sweaty person, and sometimes I'd get shakes too. Like I'd had too much caffeine but I wasn't drinking caffeine back then. But I would never emotionally feel stressed or anxious or anything, just physiologically it seems like it could be anxiety. (It could also be as simple a thing as a food intolerance caused by my undiagnosed celiac disease and therefore leaky gut.)

Anxiety because I'm different from others, and I don't want them to know.