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The Anxiety That Feels Different: When Standard Techniques Don't Work
Hey there! I'm Rebecca, and if you've found this page, you're probably feeling frustrated. Maybe you've tried breathing exercises, mindfulness apps, positive thinking, and even therapy, but your anxiety still feels like it's running the show. You might be wondering why techniques that work for others don't seem to touch the depth of what you're experiencing.
As an anxiety counsellor in Glasgow, I work with many people who describe their anxiety as feeling "different" - more intense, more persistent, and more resistant to typical coping strategies. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone, and more importantly, there's often a very good reason why standard anxiety techniques haven't been enough.
Understanding Anxiety That Won't Lift
When most people think about anxiety, they picture worry about upcoming events, occasional panic, or specific phobias. While these are certainly valid forms of anxiety, there's another type that often gets overlooked: the deep, persistent anxiety that seems woven into the fabric of daily life.
This kind of anxiety often feels like:
- A constant background hum of unease that never fully goes away
- Hypervigilance that makes relaxation feel impossible or even dangerous
- Physical tension that lives in your body regardless of external circumstances
- An internal alarm system that seems to go off at unpredictable moments
- Exhaustion from feeling like you're always "on guard"
Many people describe this type of anxiety as feeling fundamentally different from what others seem to experience. It's not just worry about specific things - it's a pervasive sense that something isn't quite right, even when life is going well.
When Your Nervous System Has Good Reasons
What many people don't realize is that persistent, treatment-resistant anxiety often has roots in experiences that taught your nervous system to stay alert for danger. Your brain isn't malfunctioning - it's actually doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe, based on past experiences.
This might include:
- Growing up in environments where emotional safety was unpredictable
- Experiencing chronic stress during formative years
- Having caregivers who were emotionally unavailable or inconsistent
- Witnessing conflict or instability that required constant vigilance
- Medical experiences that left you feeling helpless or unsafe
- Any situation where you learned that the world could become dangerous without warning
When these experiences happen, especially during childhood, they can create what researchers call "complex trauma" - not necessarily dramatic events, but chronic experiences that shaped how your nervous system responds to the world.
Why Standard Anxiety Techniques Sometimes Fall Short
Traditional anxiety treatments often focus on managing symptoms in the present moment, which can be incredibly helpful for situational anxiety. However, when anxiety stems from a nervous system that learned to be hypervigilant for survival, surface-level techniques may not address the underlying patterns.
Common approaches that might feel limited:
Breathing Exercises: While helpful for many, some people find that focusing on their breath actually increases anxiety because it draws attention to physical sensations that feel threatening.
"Just Relax" Advice: For someone whose nervous system equates relaxation with vulnerability, being told to relax can feel not just impossible, but dangerous
Cognitive Techniques Alone: Trying to think your way out of anxiety can be exhausting when your body is sending constant signals of danger, regardless of what your rational mind knows.
Mindfulness Without Context: While mindfulness can be powerful, for some people, being present with their internal experience feels overwhelming without proper support and understanding.
This doesn't mean these techniques are wrong - they're simply incomplete when anxiety has deeper roots.
The Difference Between Anxiety and Trauma-Based Anxiety
Understanding the distinction between general anxiety and trauma-informed anxiety can be life-changing. Here's how they often differ:
General Anxiety Typically:
- Focuses on specific worries or future events
- Responds well to logical reasoning and coping strategies
- Fluctuates based on external circumstances
- Can be managed with standard therapeutic approaches
- Feels proportionate to the triggering situation
Trauma-Based Anxiety Often:
- Feels pervasive and not tied to specific current threats
- Includes intense physical responses that seem disproportionate
- Involves hypervigilance and scanning for danger
- Includes difficulty feeling safe even in objectively safe situations
- May involve dissociation or emotional numbing
- Responds better to trauma-informed therapeutic approaches
Many people spend years thinking they have "bad anxiety" or that they're "just anxious people," when what they're actually experiencing is their nervous system's adaptive response to past experiences.
Your Quick Self-Assessment: Is This Trauma-Related Anxiety?
Consider these questions honestly:
☐ Does your anxiety feel like it lives in your body more than your thoughts? - You might notice tension, racing heart, or other physical symptoms even when you can't identify what you're worried about.
☐ Do you feel hypervigilant in situations others find relaxing? - Restaurants, social gatherings, or even quiet moments at home might feel alerting rather than peaceful.
☐ Does your anxiety seem disproportionate to current circumstances? - You might logically know you're safe but still feel your body responding as if you're in danger.
☐ Do you struggle to feel calm even after stressful situations have ended? - Your nervous system might stay activated long after external threats have passed.
☐ Have standard anxiety treatments felt incomplete or temporarily helpful? - Techniques work in the moment but don't address the underlying sense of unease.
☐ Do you find yourself constantly scanning your environment or people's emotions? - You might automatically assess for potential problems or conflicts before you even realise you're doing it.
☐ Does anxiety interfere with your ability to trust your own perceptions? - You might second-guess yourself frequently or feel confused about whether your reactions are "appropriate."
☐ Do you feel like you're always waiting for something bad to happen? - Even during good times, there might be an underlying sense of impending difficulty.
If you checked several of these boxes, your anxiety might benefit from a trauma-informed approach rather than standard anxiety treatment alone.
A Different Approach: Trauma-Informed Anxiety Treatment
When anxiety has trauma-based roots, the most effective treatment approaches work with your nervous system rather than against it. This means acknowledging that your responses make perfect sense given your experiences, and helping your system learn new patterns of safety.
Trauma-informed anxiety counselling often includes:
Body-Based Awareness: Learning to notice and work with physical sensations rather than trying to eliminate them, helping your nervous system recognize genuine safety
EMDR Therapy: Processing underlying experiences that may be maintaining anxiety patterns, allowing your brain to integrate these memories without the emotional charge.
Nervous System Education: Understanding how trauma affects your body's responses, which can be incredibly validating and reduce self-judgment.
Gradual Exposure with Support: Slowly expanding your window of tolerance for anxiety-provoking situations while maintaining connection to safety and support.
Somatic Approaches: Working directly with the body's stored responses to trauma, helping release chronic patterns of tension and hypervigilance. The goal isn't to eliminate anxiety, some level of alertness is healthy and protective. Instead, it's about helping your nervous system learn to distinguish between genuine threats and echoes of past experiences.
CBT Therapy with a Trauma-Informed Lens
Many people have heard of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) as a gold-standard treatment for anxiety, and it absolutely can be effective. However, when anxiety has trauma-based roots, CBT often works best when combined with trauma-informed approaches.
Traditional CBT focuses on changing thought patterns and behaviors, which is valuable. But trauma-informed CBT also addresses:
- How past experiences may be influencing current perceptions
- The role of the nervous system in maintaining anxiety patterns
- Body-based interventions alongside cognitive work
- The importance of safety and trust in the therapeutic relationship
In my Glasgow practice, I often use CBT techniques within a broader trauma-informed framework, ensuring that we're addressing both the symptoms you're experiencing now and the underlying patterns that may be maintaining them.
Finding the Right Support in Glasgow
If you're recognising yourself in this description, finding anxiety counselling that truly understands the complexity of your experience can make all the difference. Not all anxiety therapy is the same, and what you need is someone who can work with both your current symptoms and the deeper patterns that may be driving them.
When looking for an anxiety therapist, consider finding someone who:
- Has training in trauma-informed approaches
- Understands how past experiences can influence present anxiety
- Uses evidence-based methods like EMDR alongside traditional anxiety treatments
- Creates a space where your experiences are validated rather than pathologized
At Brain Botanics, I specialise in anxiety counselling for people whose anxiety feels complex, persistent, or different from what standard approaches seem to address. My work combines evidence-based anxiety treatments with trauma-informed care, always moving at a pace that feels manageable and safe.
What Trauma-Informed Anxiety Treatment Looks Like
Many people worry that trauma-informed therapy means diving immediately into difficult memories or experiences. In reality, effective trauma therapy prioritises safety and stabilization above all else.
Initial phases often focus on:
- Building coping skills and emotional regulation tools
- Creating safety in your body and environment
- Understanding your unique anxiety patterns and triggers
- Developing a sense of choice and control in the therapeutic process
Later work might include:
- Processing specific experiences that may be maintaining anxiety patterns
- EMDR to help integrate difficult memories
- Expanding your capacity to tolerate and move through anxiety
- Building new neural pathways that support feelings of safety
Throughout this process, you maintain complete control over the pace and depth of the work. Effective trauma therapy never feels re-traumatizing - instead, it should feel empowering and supportive.
Your Anxiety Makes Sense
One of the most important things I want you to know is that your anxiety makes sense. Whether it stems from obvious traumatic experiences or more subtle patterns of chronic stress, your nervous system developed these responses for good reasons. You're not broken, oversensitive, or fundamentally flawed.
What you're experiencing is evidence of your resilience - your system found ways to survive and protect you through difficult experiences. Now, with the right support, you can help your nervous system learn that those protective strategies, while necessary then, don't need to run your life now.
Ready to Explore a Different Approach?
If you're tired of anxiety treatments that feel like they're missing something important, or if you're curious about whether trauma-informed approaches might help where other methods haven't, you don't have to figure this out alone. Understanding that your anxiety might have deeper roots isn't discouraging - it's actually hopeful. It means there are specific, effective approaches that can address not just your symptoms, but the underlying patterns that have been maintaining them.
Take the next step:
If this resonates with you, consider taking our trauma self-assessment to better understand whether past experiences might be influencing your current anxiety patterns. You might be surprised by what you discover.
Ready for professional support?
I offer free consultation calls where we can discuss your specific experience with anxiety and explore whether trauma-informed approaches might be helpful for you. There's no pressure - just an opportunity to be truly heard and understood.
Book your free consultation to begin exploring anxiety treatment that addresses the whole picture, not just the symptoms. Together, we can help your nervous system learn that it's safe to relax, one step at a time.