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Distinguishing between ordinary anxiety and clinical anxiety disorders is important yet often overlooked. As explained by professionals like David H. Rosmarin, who leads the Center for Anxiety therapy practice, the blurred boundaries between everyday worries and pathological conditions can lead to misconceptions and misdiagnoses.

Rosmarin stressed the prevalence of misattributed distress, citing instances where individuals mistake stress for anxiety and highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of emotional nuances. With mental health discussions increasingly permeating societal discourse, terms like "narcissism" and "gaslighting" have become commonplace, yet the distinction between transient emotional states and clinical conditions remains elusive.

The normalization of mental health conversations signifies progress in destigmatizing psychological struggles, yet it also breeds confusion, as lay interpretations often pathologize commonplace emotions. This oversimplification, as Rosmarin notes, hampers emotional intelligence, limiting individuals' ability to accurately articulate and address their inner experiences.

According to psychiatrist Tracey Marks, anxiety can be both a normal reaction and a pathological condition. Everyday situations like a first date or a work presentation can trigger temporary anxiety, accompanied by physiological effects such as sweating or a racing heartbeat. This momentary anxiety serves a functional purpose, signaling potential danger or preparing for challenges, and typically subsides after the event. However, in today's anxiety-inducing world, characterized by climate change, political tensions, and social unrest, experiencing distressing reactions to perceived threats is commonplace.

Marks said that an anxiety disorder manifests when anxiety significantly disrupts daily life. Symptoms like physical discomfort or persistent worry about social situations may indicate conditions like social anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder. Individuals with these disorders may exhibit avoidance behaviors, experience difficulty relaxing, or constantly worry about various aspects of life, regardless of logic.

"One of the characteristics of generalized anxiety, is that you can worry about anything. You can worry about world peace," Marks said, Vox reported.

Furthermore, anxiety is distinct from stress, as explained by Rosmarin. Stress arises from an imbalance between demands and resources, such as time or money, whereas anxiety often occurs despite having adequate resources. Even in favorable circumstances, individuals may find themselves overwhelmed by hypothetical worst-case scenarios, distinguishing anxiety from fear, which responds to concrete threats rather than future risks or uncertainties.

Nick Haslam, a psychology professor at the University of Melbourne, pointed out the subjective nature of anxiety boundaries, suggesting that lay individuals often categorize all distressing experiences as "anxiety" due to a lack of emotional intelligence. Haslam emphasizes the need to accurately identify emotions, noting the limited emotional vocabulary resulting from inadequate emotional education beyond primary school. He argues that simplistic categorizations of emotions into "good" and "bad" further complicate understanding appropriate responses to situations, making coping with complex feelings challenging.

Haslam said that individuals who struggle to articulate their emotions face difficulties in managing nuanced feelings, exacerbating the tendency to pathologize normal experiences. Marks echoed this sentiment, clarifying that feeling uneasy in new social settings, while common, does not equate to social anxiety.

Moreover, psychologist Juli Fraga warns against self-diagnosing anxiety disorders based on generalized online content, emphasizing that situational anxiety often stems from underlying relational traumas rather than clinical conditions.

"Even if you do have anxiety, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have an anxiety disorder," Fraga said.