When Chronic Anxiety Feels Normal (And Why It Doesn’t Have to)
"I thought that was normal."
I hear this phrase often, usually spoken with a half-smile or nervous laugh, just after someone has described what it’s like inside their world.
The constant feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Replaying conversations, scanning for mistakes or hidden meanings.
The worry about how others see them and whether they’ve said or done the “wrong” thing.
The second-guessing of even the smallest choices, what to eat for dinner, which route to take, whether that message sounded okay.
The way it feels impossible to fully exhale and just be.
And then, with genuine surprise, they’ll say:
“I thought everyone lived like this.”
It can be such a powerful moment. Almost like living underwater and believing that’s how the world works, until you find out there’s air above the surface.
The Fish Doesn't Know It's Wet
Here's what interesting about chronic anxiety: it's invisible to the person living with it. When your baseline is hypervigilance, hypervigilance feels normal. When your nervous system has been in overdrive since childhood, overdrive feels like... Tuesday.
I had another client who, after her second IEMT session, called me almost panicked: "Something's wrong. I'm not thinking about anything."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I'm just... sitting here. My mind isn't racing. I'm not worrying or replaying conversations. Is this... is this how other people feel?" she asked genuinely curious.
She'd lived forty three years believing that mental chaos was the human condition.
It can feel unsettling, seeing how much of your energy has been spent just keeping things together. And yet, that same realisation can be freeing, because suddenly you can begin to imagine living differently.
The Underwater Life
Imagine you’ve been underwater your entire conscious life. You’ve developed incredible skills down there; you’re efficient, you can hold your breath for ages, you’ve learned to navigate in low visibility and you’re always alert for danger.
From down below, you can see the surface, it shimmers above you. But you assume everyone lives in the depths, just like you. The pressure in your chest? Normal. The muffled, distant feeling of the world around you? That’s just how life sounds.
Then one day, for reasons you can’t quite explain, your head breaks the surface.
And suddenly, you realise: you’ve been holding your breath for far too long.
How Adaptive Anxiety Develops
Early Learning: Your nervous system is incredibly smart, it learns what keeps you safe. If you grew up in an environment where:
Conflict felt dangerous (parents arguing, walking on eggshells)
Love felt conditional (only got attention when you were "good")
Unpredictability was the norm (chaotic household, inconsistent caregivers)
Your emotions weren't welcome (told to stop crying, be strong)
Your brain develops anxiety as a survival strategy. It starts scanning constantly for signs of danger, rejection, or abandonment. This hypervigilance actually worked - it helped you navigate those early challenges.
How It Gets Sustained
The Reinforcement Loop:
Anxiety warns you of potential social threats
You adapt your behaviour (people-please, avoid conflict, over-prepare)
Bad thing doesn't happen (because you prevented it through anxiety-driven behaviour)
Brain thinks: "See! The anxiety worked! Keep doing this!"
Example: You spend ages crafting the perfect text so you don't sound rude → Person responds positively → Your brain credits the anxiety/over-thinking for the good outcome → Pattern reinforced
Neuroplasticity Factor: The neural pathways for hypervigilance get stronger with use (like a path through grass that becomes a motorway). Your brain becomes efficient at anxiety - it can spot potential problems from miles away.
Why It Feels Like Personality
After decades, these responses become automatic and unconscious:
You don't choose to scan rooms for threats - it just happens
People-pleasing feels natural, not effortful
The mental rehearsing happens without you deciding to do it
The chest tightness becomes background noise
Your identity forms around these adaptive strategies:
"I'm just very detail oriented" (I catastrophise every possible outcome)
"I'm naturally empathetic" (I absorb everyone's emotions as my responsibility)
"I'm a planner" (I can't exist without controlling every variable)
"I care about people" (I shape shift to avoid any hint of conflict)
You just think you're naturally cautious. Naturally considerate. A natural worrier.
Your nervous system learned to hold its breath, metaphorically speaking, to keep you safe. The problem is, it never learned when to exhale.
The Breakthrough
This is exactly why IEMT is so effective for this type of deep rooted anxiety. We're not just treating symptoms; we’re updating your nervous system's threat assessment.
It's like showing your brain new information: "The danger you're protecting against isn't here anymore. The strategies that kept you safe when you were seven don't need to run your life when you're thirty seven."
IEMT helps your nervous system recalibrate what requires that hypervigilant response and what doesn't.
The Before and After That No One Talks About
What's remarkable isn't just what changes, it's what stays the same. People worry they'll become lazy or careless or somehow "less than" if they're not constantly vigilant.
Instead, they discover they can be thoughtful without being obsessive. They can be responsible without being rigid. They can care about outcomes without being paralysed by them.
One client put it beautifully: "I'm still me, just... at a manageable volume."
What Awaits Above the Surface
If any of this feels familiar and if you’ve started to wonder whether your “normal” might just be your nervous system stuck in survival mode, here’s something important to know:
There’s air up here.
There’s a version of you who doesn’t spend every moment preparing for what could go wrong. A you who can make mistakes without it feeling like the end of the world. A you who can walk into a room and simply be, without performing. A you who can have needs without apology, who doesn’t have to keep proving your right to exist.
You don’t have to become someone new. You only have to reconnect with the parts of you that already know how to breathe.
