I too have noticed that real life crisis do not give me panic attacks either. I've dealt with many things the most trying being my sons diagnosis of a heart defect at birth and then having heart surgery... Never once did I panic... Funny how that works...
I, for one, and I'm sure many of you - have this very problem.
Anxiety becomes who we are rather than the reaction to stress/fear that it is.
I noticed this when I suffered from depression some years ago. I had become my illness. I positively reinforced in my mind that I was 'depressed'. Not so.
No. I was not a 'depressive' - I am not anxiety.
They are emotions that everyone feels. Yes - we feel it more than most, but we can recover. We can heal. We are not anxiety.
If you were to break both of your legs - you are not disabled. You recover, maybe with help from psyiotherapy. When you are walking, running, and repaired - you are not broken...
And the same applies to anxiety/panic attacks. You seek help, you recover and you move on.
Holding on to the fear that things will make you anxious is useless, as I've found recently.
When I first suffered panic attacks, I was exposed to everyday stresses. Work, relationship, money, etc. Normal things. They led to me developing panic attacks.
Recently, I've been exposed to abnormal stresses. Relationship break ups, the death of friends, extreme money problems, etc. I haven't had a single panic attack.
