Types of Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders take different forms. A name helps match care to the person, but only a health care provider can make a diagnosis.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
Worry or nervousness about everyday things such as health, money, work, or family that is hard to control and out of proportion to the situation. A diagnosis needs worry on most days for at least 6 months, plus at least three signs such as restlessness, tiredness, trouble concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, or sleep problems.
It develops gradually and usually starts in early adulthood, though it can begin at any age.
National Institute of Mental Health · Generalized anxiety disorder
Panic disorder
Repeated, unexpected panic attacks: sudden waves of fear with physical symptoms such as a pounding heart, sweating, trembling, or trouble breathing, plus at least 1 month of worry about more attacks or changing behavior to avoid them.
A single panic attack is not a mental disorder. Panic attacks can feel like a heart attack but are not life-threatening themselves.
Specific phobias
An ongoing, intense fear of a certain object, animal, activity, or setting that poses little or no real danger, such as flying, heights, enclosed spaces, insects, or blood and injections. Being near it, or even thinking about it, sets off anxiety.
Avoiding the feared thing can interfere with work and social life. Phobias tend to last but can respond to treatment.
Agoraphobia
Intense fear of places or situations where escape might be hard, leading a person to avoid things like being outside the home alone, traveling by car, bus, or plane, or being in a crowd.
It can happen with or without panic disorder. Since 2013 the two are diagnosed separately because many people with agoraphobia do not have panic symptoms.
National Institute of Mental Health · Agoraphobia statistics
Separation anxiety disorder
Fear of being apart from a parent or other attachment figure that goes well beyond a child's normal stage of separation anxiety, which usually ends around age 2. Signs include intense distress at separation, nightmares, refusing school or sleep away from the caregiver, repeated physical complaints, and worry that harm will come to the caregiver.
Adults can have it too. It is now classed as an anxiety disorder, and onset no longer has to be before age 18.
Selective mutism
A child who speaks at home is unable to speak in certain settings, most often at school or in social situations. It usually starts between ages 3 and 6 and must last at least 1 month, not counting the first month of school.
It is not stubbornness. Most children with selective mutism have extreme social fear, which is why it is now grouped with the anxiety disorders.
Substance or medication-induced anxiety
Anxiety or panic brought on by a substance or medicine, or by withdrawal from one. Caffeine, other substances, and certain medicines can make anxiety symptoms worse.
This is one reason to tell a provider about everything you take, including over-the-counter products and supplements.
Anxiety due to another medical condition
Anxiety linked to a physical health problem. Thyroid problems and an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) are examples of conditions tied to anxiety.
A provider may do a physical exam and lab tests to make sure a different health problem is not causing the symptoms.