Anxiety That Doesn’t Go Away On Its Own

Feeling anxious before a hard conversation, a big presentation, or a medical appointment is normal. An anxiety disorder is what happens when that response doesn’t switch off — when the worry is constant, the fear is out of proportion, and your body is stuck in a state of alert even when there’s nothing actually threatening you. It’s exhausting, and it tends to get worse over time without treatment, not better.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health conditions in adults — roughly one in five Americans deals with one each year. They’re also among the most treatable, once you understand which type you’re dealing with.

What Anxiety Disorder Do You Have?

“Anxiety” covers a range of conditions that feel different from each other and respond differently to treatment. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is the most common — persistent, hard-to-control worry that touches multiple areas of your life, paired with physical symptoms like muscle tension, fatigue, and trouble sleeping. Panic disorder is something else: sudden, overwhelming surges of fear that peak within minutes, often with a racing heart, chest tightness, and a sense of unreality. Between attacks, the fear of having another one starts shaping what you do and where you go.

Social anxiety disorder goes well beyond shyness. It’s a persistent fear of being scrutinized or humiliated in social situations — one that limits your career, your relationships, and sometimes just your ability to make a phone call. Specific phobias, agoraphobia, and separation anxiety round out the category, each with its own trigger and its own treatment approach.

Getting the right diagnosis matters because the first-line treatments aren’t identical across anxiety types. What works best for panic disorder isn’t quite the same as what works best for social anxiety, even though both are anxiety conditions.

Why Anxiety Shows Up in the Body First

A lot of people with anxiety disorders don’t end up in a psychiatrist’s office first — they end up at urgent care or the ER with chest pain, palpitations, dizziness, or GI symptoms that feel physical. These are real symptoms. The nervous system driving anxiety is the same nervous system that runs your heart rate, your digestion, and your breathing. Anxiety isn’t “just in your head.”

Dr. Uddin’s training in both psychiatry and internal medicine means he can work through the medical picture before landing on a psychiatric explanation. Thyroid problems, cardiac arrhythmias, and other conditions can mimic or worsen anxiety — ruling those out is part of a thorough evaluation, not an afterthought.

What Treatment Looks Like

For most anxiety disorders, the two best-supported treatments are medication and therapy — and they work better together than either does alone. SSRIs (sertraline, escitalopram) and SNRIs (venlafaxine, duloxetine) are the standard first-line medications. They’re not habit-forming, they take four to six weeks to reach full effect, and for most people they reduce the baseline level of anxiety significantly. Buspirone is a non-habit-forming alternative particularly useful for GAD.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — specifically exposure-based CBT — is the most effective psychotherapy for anxiety disorders. It works by gradually confronting the situations and thoughts that trigger anxiety, rather than avoiding them, until the fear response recalibrates. For panic disorder and phobias, the results are durable in a way that medication alone often isn’t.

Benzodiazepines like lorazepam or clonazepam are sometimes used for acute anxiety, but they’re not a long-term solution — they treat the symptom without addressing what’s driving it, and they carry real dependence risk with extended use. Dr. Uddin prescribes them judiciously, with a clear plan for what they’re addressing and when they’re no longer needed.

Anxiety Care in Kansas City

KC Psychiatry & Primary Care sees adult patients with anxiety disorders in Kansas City and throughout Missouri and Kansas via telemedicine. If anxiety has been affecting your work, your relationships, or just your ability to get through the day without dreading what’s next, a psychiatric evaluation is a reasonable first step.

Related: Depression care | Adult ADHD | Anxiety specialist in Kansas City