Anxiety vs. Trauma: What are the Differences and Similarities?
Do I have Trauma or Anxiety?
Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between trauma and anxiety. They can feel the same because both can produce similar responses in your body…such as heart racing, feeling shaky, feeling afraid or feeling sweaty. Both can cause panic, intrusive thoughts, avoidance and irritability…so what’s the difference? If the symptoms are similar, then how do you know which one you have? And why is it important to know which one you’re experiencing? Because while they can feel similar, anxiety and trauma are very different experiences and have different causes, so they are treated differently. I always tell my clients that understanding something is the first step to changing it so first I’m going to explain what is anxiety and what is trauma, and then we’ll get into their similarities and differences.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is like your brain’s alarm system. It’s meant to keep you safe by alerting you to potential dangers, but sometimes it gets out of control. Instead of just keeping you cautious when you need to be (and when it is helpful) when it’s always in alarm mode we worry all the time and it can feel really hard to stop.
Anxiety can look like constantly worrying about the future, thinking through every possible outcome, trying to plan for each one, eeling restless or on edge, or difficulty relaxing. It can look like your heart racing, nausea, or dizziness. It can cause trouble sleeping, trouble slowing down or relaxing, or cause racing thoughts. Anxiety can also look like replaying situations or conversations over and over, worrying if you said or did the wrong thing, avoiding certain situations or people or even intrusive thoughts. While intrusive thoughts occur in OCD too, not all intrusive thoughts mean you have OCD. They are super common and happen to a lot of people, but they don’t cause significant distress.
A little bit of anxiety is normal and can even be helpful, like when it motivates you to remember your passport when traveling abroad, or when you are preparing for a big event (like important situation at work or a conversation you need to have with someone). But when anxiety becomes excessive and keeps interfering with daily life, that’s when it becomes a problem.
What is Trauma?
I like to explain trauma is something that happens (once or repeatedly) that alters the way you see yourself and the way you see the world. It can be a single event like a car accident, a natural disaster or a violent event, or from ongoing situations like abuse, neglect or other harmful situations.
Trauma symptoms can include: flashbacks or nightmares about the event, feeling emotionally numb or disconnected, avoiding people, places, or things that remind you of the trauma, being easily startled or constantly on high alert, and struggles with trust and relationships - particularly feeling safe or that others can be trustworthy. If you’re thinking these sound like the anxiety symptoms you just mentioned you are correct, and we’ll get to that.
The bottom line is that trauma literally changes the way your brain interprets and reacts to the world around you, and there is usually a significant difference between how you felt before it and how you feel afterwards.
How Are Anxiety and Trauma Similar?
While anxiety and trauma are different, they can have the same symptoms. Both can cause hypervigilance, like you’re always waiting for something bad to happen and always trying to plan for what’s next and plan for worst case scenarios. As we discussed earlier, both can cause physical symptoms like heart racing, sweating, rapid or difficulty breathing, or even nausea and other stomach and GI issues. Both can result in avoidance where we actively avoid certain situations or people who we feel anxious, fearful or overwhelmed around. Lastly, they both can have a significant impact on daily life. Both can interfere with work and relationships and just our overall quality of life.
How Are Anxiety and Trauma Different?
Now let’s talk about some important differences between the two. One of the biggest differences is where it comes from, or the root cause. Anxiety is almost always worrying about something in the future or can be a general sense of foreboding or even doom. Trauma is caused by a past experience or experiences that changed how we feel and think. Another difference is what we worry about; with anxiety we worry about what will happen and with trauma we are impacted by and reacting to what already happened and are trying to prevent it from happening again. Lastly, an important difference between the two is how we respond. With anxiety we tend to engage in overthinking, planning for everything and trying to anticipate and plan for every outcome. While trauma can also cause us to be hypervigilant, it can also cause us to dissociate, shut down physically and emotionally, or withdraw altogether when we get overwhelmed physically or emotionally.
Examples of Anxiety vs. Trauma
I’m always using examples, metaphors and analogies in my work with clients to help explain certain concepts so let’s go over a few examples now. You have a big interview coming up for a promotion at work. You’re worried you’ll say the wrong thing and you prepare extensively for the interview. When it’s time for the interview you’re nervous, talking a little fast and your palms feel sweaty. Once the interview is over you feel better, even if you feel a little jittery right after. That’s an anxiety response. A trauma response could look like being unable to think when asked a hard question in the interview and shutting down completely and maybe even going right back to the feeling of being humiliated by a coach or a parent when you were a child because you gave the wrong answer to their question. The shutting down is a trauma response because it is your brain trying to protect you from saying the wrong thing and feeling like you did when you were younger.
Another example is avoiding or fearing flying. You are nervous to fly because you’re worried the plane may crash, the turbulence is unsettling or you get motion sickness, so you feel anxious about the upcoming flight. A trauma response would be avoiding it because you were in a plane crash, or were traumatized by watching one and every time you get on a plane you relive that experience over and over again, like being stuck in the same scene of a movie that keeps replaying and you can’t make it stop. Another transportation example can also be driving. Maybe you feel nervous when driving, worried about what other drivers are going to do or what will happen if you suddenly get a flat tire on the interstate in rush hour traffic. That’s anxiety. But if you’ve been in a car accident, a car getting too close or coming up behind you too quickly, or even just getting in the driver’s seat of a car may make you feel terrified and paralyzed, or even take you back to the memory of the car accident - that is a trauma response.
Can Trauma Lead to Anxiety?
This is another question I get often and the answer is - absolutely. Trauma can be a major cause of anxiety, especially if you didn’t have it before, or at least not at this level. If you had a particularly traumatic birth, you may feel anxious about getting pregnant or having another baby even though you didn’t feel that kind of anxiety with the first. Sometimes you don’t even have to have experienced a traumatic event yourself for it to impact you and cause anxiety. For example, if you witnessed a traumatic event (like watching the second tower get hit on 9/11) or were close to someone who did experience a trauma and it impacted you, that is an experience we call vicarious trauma. It’s very real and it can change how your brain interprets the world around you. When we’ve experienced trauma we can think we see danger everywhere, even if there isn’t any. Finally, witnessing or experiencing trauma can ALSO do this really annoying thing where we begin to believe that whatever happened to others can happen to us, and we can begin to feel anxious in situations that didn’t used to cause distress, but do now.
How to Cope with Anxiety and Trauma
Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, trauma, or both, I recommend finding a therapist who specializes in anxiety, or one that specializes in trauma. Look for someone who is licensed and articulates how they can help you. Anxiety and trauma usually don’t resolve just through talking about, usually there are things you need to do to overcome them, which is why it’s so important to work with a therapist who knows what they are doing. There are various ways to treat both anxiety, but some of the more well-known and currently supported by research options include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Some of the most researched ways to treat trauma are Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Brainspotting and EMDR. Important note: These are NOT the only ways to treat trauma and anxiety - this list is not exhaustive by any means but can give you a good place to start in finding a therapist that can help you with anxiety and/or trauma. I encourage you to ask questions about how the therapist treats the issue you want to work on so you can get a better sense of whether or not it’s a good fit. In the meantime, you can try physical movement to help ease your symptoms and get you to your first appointment. Research shows us that physical movement can help us process trauma that is still stuck in our bodies, and can help use up the extra energy generated by anxiety.
If you’re looking for an anxiety therapist in Denver CO, I encourage you to schedule a consultation to find out if we would be a good fit. If you’re not in Colorado you can find a therapist specializing in anxiety or trauma by searching an online directly, such as this one or this one. Either way, I hope you reach out to someone to get the help you need, and the help you deserve. You deserve to life a life free of anxiety, and free from the grips of trauma.
DISCLAIMER: This blog is for educational and entertainment purposes only; it is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Reading this website does not constitute a provider-client relationship. Consult your licensed physician or licensed mental health provider regarding advice, questions and support for your mental health. Information found on this website should be used only in conjunction with working with a licensed mental health professional or physician. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call 911 or 988. See website disclaimer for more information.
