In broad terms, anxiety is feeling that something isn’t quiet right. People describe the feelings, the shortness of breath or something in their body, that says a bad thing is about to happen. Anything from an annoying thought to a panic attack.
The root could be many things. Unpaid bills you can’t push out of your mind. Fears of some future event going bad. Sometimes we can put our finger on these topics and know what they are rather than just vaguely not feeling right.
Other times the trigger is from way back. A real event that was too much, so long ago we almost forgot about it. When these ancient feelings are triggered we can feel everything about it like it just happened. Those are the scary feelings that seem to come from nowhere.
Counseling can help go through those old experiences and how they were filed away. We can define them as the original experience and then how you think about them now. Resolving them means making sense of them as best as you can. They may always be sad and terrible stories but you’ll know there are not occurring today and the anxiety should fade.