6. OUTBURSTS ARE RARE BUT SURPRISINGLY INTENSE
When someone has high functioning anxiety, they may suppress how they really feel or minimize the intensity of their feelings so they seem calm most of the time. However, an anxious person is likely to explode at you when they continue to be frustrated or additional stressors like noise are introduced into an already stressful situation.
7. THOUGHTS SEEM PREOCCUPIED
When you’re telling them about something that is on your mind, their mind seems to have wandered and it’s as if they’re half listening to you. Most likely they are worried about what to say in response, worried about what you think of them, or if you bumped into them unexpectedly, worrying about the next unpredictable encounter. For the highly-functioning anxious person, thoughts are focused on the future or the past, not the here and now.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago found that people with anxiety disorders had fear of the unknown. Researchers say that “Uncertain threat is unpredictable in its timing, intensity, frequency or duration and elicits a generalized feeling of apprehension and hyper-vigilance.” The research in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology said that fear of the unknown makes people preoccupied about their fears.