Is My Anxiety Normal or Is It Time for Therapy? | The Zoe Center

High-functioning but exhausted? Learn how anxiety shows up through over-preparing, rumination, and reassurance-seeking—and when therapy may help.

Is My Anxiety Normal—or Is It Time for Therapy?

Everyone’s Anxious…Right?

The first time a therapist suggested that my rampant perfectionism, over-preparing, and relentless ruminating were a function of anxiety, I was offended.

I was a straight-A college student on an academic scholarship, commuting forty miles one way to college each day, working twenty or more hours a week, and volunteering in my home church. I got. stuff. done. Anxiety, in my mind, was for worry-warts who panicked over every little thing.

Sure, I was a disorganized mess sometimes—forgetting deadlines or overdrawing my checking account because I was too busy to deposit my paycheck. And yes, occasionally I had to beg professors for extensions on papers because I threw out not just one, but two drafts because they weren’t quite right. And true, I spent a lot of energy over-analyzing conversations and planning for worst-case scenarios.

But that was just prudence…right?

Overthinking, over-preparing, and over-functioning meant I could keep things from going wrong in my life—or in the lives of people I loved.

Oh. There it is.

Today, I understand anxiety differently. Anxiety is a normal nervous system response to uncertainty and stress. It’s our body and mind’s way of saying, “I don’t feel safe over here—can someone please send help?” Or, in other cases, “I don’t feel safe, and I’m afraid no one else is coming, so I’ll just work harder and harder to create a world that feels safe.”

Sound familiar?

So many high-achieving, even perfectionistic women delay therapy for anxiety thinking, “This is just how I’m wired,” or “Other people have it worse.” They may even think, “If I don’t do it all, who will?” Their ability to keep performing—despite the toll it takes on their body, mind, and spirit—becomes the evidence they use to argue that their anxiety isn’t really a problem.

But what if anxiety can be normal and too much at the same time?

One of the clearest clues that anxiety may be running the show isn’t panic—it’s how much energy we spend trying to prevent things from going wrong.

Recently, a winter storm warning was issued in my town outside of Houston. As South Texans, this isn’t a weather system we see often—something made evident by the run on milk, eggs…and tortillas. (I kid you not. The fresh tortilla section was completely wiped out. We Texans have our priorities straight.)

For me, this was my first storm as a newly single, newly empty-nester. As I thought about the possibility of a couple of days without heat or electricity, my mind immediately went into preparation mode.

Somewhere along the way, logical preparation became excessive preparation.

Hire someone to bring my generator from storage and teach me how to crank the darn thing—check.Fill the car with gas in case I needed to make a break for warmer weather—check.Locate a small army of candles, flashlights, lighters, headlamps, and rechargeable lamps—enough to illuminate not only my home but the next few houses as well—checkmate.

My preparation wasn’t really about the storm—it was about my confidence in myself.

It was only when I slowed down enough to notice the emotional undercurrent beneath my hyper-activity that I could connect with what was really happening: a new season of life, being alone, and wondering whether I could handle it.

Anxiety often disguises itself as responsibility, preparedness, or wisdom—when underneath it’s fear whispering, “What if you can’t handle this?”

So what’s the difference between helpful anxiety and problematic anxiety?

When our nervous system senses distress, it triggers a response designed to protect us. You’ve likely heard this referred to as the fight, flight, or freeze response. Anxiety’s biological role is to detect threat, motivate us to seek safety, and protect ourselves and others from harm.

In the short term, anxious energy can warn and protect. In the long term, it often leads to chronic worry, overwhelm, and burnout.

Anxiety becomes problematic when it is disproportionate to the threat, persists even after the threat has passed, interferes with daily functioning or peace, or begins to negatively impact relationships or performance.

If you’re experiencing this, you’re not alone. The American Psychiatric Association reports that approximately 30% of adults will struggle with an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.

If that sounds a little like you, keep reading. Here are five signs anxiety may be running the show.

Sign #1: Over-Preparing for Contingencies

That winter storm I prepared for? It skirted our city entirely. (My front yard—by contrast, the picture at the top was my son's actual snow event at his college in Dallas)

All of my extra layers of protection were unnecessary. Anxiety magnifies the threat of danger while minimizing our ability to handle it. Over-preparing often looks like constantly planning for worst-case scenarios, having excessive backups “just in case,” or mentally rehearsing disasters long before they happen.

Chronic anxiety makes it difficult to tolerate uncertainty. And here’s the paradox: when we feed anxiety with more contingencies and workarounds, we don’t feel calmer—we feel more anxious.

Over-preparing is like leaving your car idling in the driveway all day just in case you need to go somewhere later. It burns emotional energy, wastes mental fuel that could be used elsewhere, and drains your physical battery.

Over-preparing might look like re-reading (or re-drafting) emails multiple times, over-researching minor health symptoms, excessive checking on children or loved ones, or avoiding decisions until every possible variable is accounted for.

While over-preparing can temporarily reduce anxiety, in the long run it reinforces a harmful belief: “I can only be okay if I control everything.”

Sign #2: Anxiety Is Consuming Your Mental Bandwidth

Your brain is an incredibly powerful machine—performing more complex operations than the fastest computers on earth. When anxiety is running the show, you may find yourself ruminating, replaying the same scenario, conversation, or “what if” over and over again.

It can feel as though your brain never shuts down. You may struggle to be fully present—your body is in the room, but your mind is a million miles away.

Rumination often interferes with sleep. Anxiety may show up as difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, waking early, or some combination of all three. When your mind refuses to rest—even when your body desperately needs it—it’s a sign your stress load may be too high.

Sign #3: You’re Functioning—but at a Cost

Spend a little time on social media—especially at the beginning of the year—and it can seem like everyone is hustling harder than you. Workout plans, organizational challenges, and “dry January” can make it feel as though everyone else is thriving while you’re falling behind.

A common response to this pressure is to crank up the volume of our minds, our schedules, and our expectations.

But high achievement often comes with high exhaustion.

When you’re running on empty, irritability increases and margin disappears. Your four-year-old insists on tying their own shoes, and instead of enjoying the milestone, you feel frustrated by the extra two minutes. Your teen crawls onto your bed at 10:00 p.m. to talk about school, and instead of being present, you’re resenting the sleep you’ll lose because you know your mind will wake you at 3:00 a.m. anyway.

High-functioning anxiety erases joy and increases reactivity. Worse still, when we reach what we thought was the “mountaintop,” we often find that (a) we’re too exhausted to enjoy it, (b) it never actually existed, or (c) we immediately scan the horizon for the next mountain to climb.

Sign #4: Avoidance Is Shrinking Your Life

For some people, anxiety doesn’t show up as over-doing—it appears as under-functioning. This might be the person who fully intends to attend a party but changes outfits five times, overthinks everything, and ultimately stays home.

(And I’ll whisper gently here—it was never really about the outfit.)

Anxiety can lead to saying no to opportunities out of fear of failure or social discomfort. Avoidance can also look like staying busy with low-stakes tasks to avoid ones that feel emotionally risky—doom-scrolling instead of paying bills, for example. It’s often easier to avoid discomfort than to face it.

Avoidance may also show up as emotional numbing: too much of what doesn’t help and too little of what does—too much scrolling, alcohol, or television; too little sleep, connection, or rest.

Anxious avoidance isn’t always depression, though the two can overlap. More often, it’s the nervous system predicting failure and shutting down to avoid perceived pain.

Sign #5: Reassurance No Longer Reassures

Seeking reassurance from time to time is normal. We use GPS even when we know the route, run emails through AI to catch mistakes, and ask loved ones, “Are you mad at me?” during moments of uncertainty.

Anxiety steps in when reassurance no longer sticks.

You might find yourself asking the same question repeatedly, seeking multiple opinions for decisions you could reasonably make on your own, or frequently saying, “Is this okay?” or “I just want to double-check.”

Research published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders notes that while reassurance seeking temporarily reduces anxiety, it often leads to a rebound effect—greater anxiety and an increased urge to seek reassurance again.

If you feel stuck in an endless “Is this okay?” loop, anxiety may be running the show.

When I think back on the winter storm that never really arrived, I can see that my anxious preparation had less to do with the weather and more to do with uncertainty in a new season of life.

Fortunately, the cost of my over-functioning was relatively low—a few extra groceries and a table full of candles to put away. For others, the cost of anxiety can be much higher: missed moments, chronic exhaustion, strained relationships, or a life slowly narrowed by fear.

As we head toward the end of winter—at least here in Houston—it may be a good time to check in with yourself. Where is your anxiety right now, and what might help you experience a little more calm in life’s everyday storms?

If you’d like to talk more about how therapy for anxiety might help you build confidence in an uncertain world, I invite you to schedule a free phone consultation.

You can also explore more anxiety-related resources at The Zoe Center, with additional content coming soon.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2023).

What Are Anxiety Disorders?Abramowitz, J. S., et al. (2007). Reassurance seeking in anxiety.