Generally, the medical community recognizes twelve (12) different types of anxiety (each named here):

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• Specific Phobias: Overwhelming, irrational fears of specific objects or situations (e.g., spiders, heights, flying, or needles).

• Separation Anxiety Disorder: Excessive anxiety or distress caused by being separated from attachment figures or home, which can affect both children and adults.

• Selective Mutism: A childhood condition where individuals fail to speak in specific social settings (like school), despite having the ability to speak comfortably in others.

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): While classified separately in some manuals, it is often grouped with anxiety disorders; it involves intrusive, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions).

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Triggered by experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event, leading to flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety.

• Acute Stress Disorder: Similar to PTSD, but characterized by severe anxiety and dissociation occurring within the first month after experiencing a traumatic event.

• Adjustment Disorder: A stress-related condition that causes emotional or behavioral symptoms (such as anxiety or depression) in response to a specific, stressful life event (e.g., a move, divorce, or job loss).

• Substance-Induced Anxiety Disorder: Anxiety caused directly by the use of illicit drugs, medications, alcohol, or toxin exposure, or as a result of drug withdrawal. 

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Chronic, exaggerated worry and tension about everyday things (health, money, work) even when there is little to no cause.

• Panic Disorder: Recurrent, unexpected panic attacks accompanied by overwhelming physical symptoms like a racing heart, chest pain, and the fear of losing control.

• Social Anxiety Disorder: An intense fear of being humiliated, embarrassed, or judged in social situations.

• Agoraphobia: An excessive fear of situations where escape might be difficult or impossible, often leading to avoidance of crowds, open spaces, or leaving the home.

Trauma frequently causes anxiety because it alters your brain's threat-detection center (aka: the amygdala). When the amygdala is triggered by a traumatic event or one too many times, it  leaves your nervous system stuck in a persistent "fight-flight-freeze and/or fawn" mode, causing you to feel constantly on edge or triggering severe panic from past memories.

Generalized anxiety is characterized as a chronic, low-level state of persistent worry and tension about everyday life events that lasts for months. It is generally not tied to a specific trigger, as in social phobia and driving anxiety.

A panic attack is a sudden, intense surge of overwhelming fear that peaks within minutes, featuring acute physical symptoms like a racing heart and shortness of breath. The length of a panic attack is most often no more than 5-15 minutes, but it can feel like longer. 

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​On a basic biological level, anxiety protects us from danger in that it prepares us to react quickly to physical, emotional, or environmental threats. However, long term anxiety, as in generalized anxiety, can stand in the way of living a quality life. Frequent panic attacks can also hold us back. 

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