"What a dilemma." Beyond, "What is it?"is the question, "Why me? Why not someone else?" The answer will be abundantly clear for you early on in the CHAANGE Program materials.

Understandably, most people with severe anxiety are delighted to know that there are specific circumstances in their development that account for their anxiety condition. Stated generally, we know that the existence of Genetic factors, combined with the background realities for the person between birth and about 18 years, the personality and attitudes that evolved, and how you handle stress lies behind the Anxiety Conditions we see. You are a normal person who suffers an abnormal degree of discomfort due to the combination of developmental factors you have experienced, and the resulting ways of thinking and behaving.

We actually find, for example, that if we look at other family members closely, we’ll find one or more of them have tended to be anxious, though it may be well hidden. Perhaps they are great worriers, or have trouble making decisions, or are fearful in other ways. Somehow, with close observation, we can see that they fit the severe anxiety description. These might be parents, aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters, cousins, any blood relative.

We also see that the anxious are intelligent people, sometimes very intelligent. They may or may not have had the advantage of good education or experiences, yet they are often quite intelligent. Along with this tendency, they are quite Sensitive to Stimuli, meaning that things affect them more than most folks. Those "small things" may be loud noise, it may be flickering florescent lights, caffeine is a big one, alcohol sometimes is difficult, just any number of things in our environment that tend to not "roll off our backs" as easily as they do for some others.