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I’m going to give you some personal examples because sharing is caring and I always feel relieved when I hear about other people’s experiences (it makes me feel less alone).

Here are two small examples of my anxious brain – the scale of these episodes differs greatly but both were incredibly distressing:

I am on holiday and I walk across some grass. I feel a sting on the sole of my foot and look down to see a wasp. Immediately, I panic. My brain flies straight to the certain knowledge that I will develop anaphylactic shock from this sting. I can’t breathe – it’s happening fast. I run to the house, and I can feel my lips swelling up, my lungs constricting. I’m clawing at my throat, desperate to get some air in but I can’t and we’re miles away from help. I signal to my family – frantically trying to make them understand that I’m no longer able to breathe as they try and calm me down. I lie down on the bed as my mum strokes my hair and I wait for death. But ten minutes later I am forced to concede that what I thought was an allergic reaction was a panic attack brought on by my powerfully anxious brain. I’m so wiped out by it, and so embarrassed and sad that this is where my mind goes, that I have to have a two-hour nap. That fear of anaphylaxis stayed with me for a further two years. I wasn’t twelve by the way, I was twenty-nine.