I developed a form of "anxiety" disorder that went from near-panic (mostly physiological symptoms, generally breathing and dizziness connected, often exercise-triggered) to bog standard health anxiety/minor phobia like fixations (and most certainly oversensitivity to internal body clues that I'd not even notice few months prior) to generalized sense of somewhat melancholy doom accompanied by intrusive thoughts of atrocities that didn't affect me personally (so closer to "OCD like" patterns). All as a result of moderately traumatic bereavement in middle age -- there has been a morbid fascination in observing my brain breaking (metaphorically) and then sort of but not quite (yet) reassembling itself.
So, why not to call ALL of that "inappropriate fear (threat detection) reaction" seems like a very valid point on the one hand -- but finer gradation of "panic" also make much sense (the only real full on panic attack with clammy skin and other clinical symptoms I have ever had was long time before my breakdown, completely random, one off, and purely physiological -- I was 100% sure that I wasn't dying while all my symptoms were screaming that I was -- very surreal experience).
Fascinating and really useful concise summary.
I developed a form of "anxiety" disorder that went from near-panic (mostly physiological symptoms, generally breathing and dizziness connected, often exercise-triggered) to bog standard health anxiety/minor phobia like fixations (and most certainly oversensitivity to internal body clues that I'd not even notice few months prior) to generalized sense of somewhat melancholy doom accompanied by intrusive thoughts of atrocities that didn't affect me personally (so closer to "OCD like" patterns). All as a result of moderately traumatic bereavement in middle age -- there has been a morbid fascination in observing my brain breaking (metaphorically) and then sort of but not quite (yet) reassembling itself.
So, why not to call ALL of that "inappropriate fear (threat detection) reaction" seems like a very valid point on the one hand -- but finer gradation of "panic" also make much sense (the only real full on panic attack with clammy skin and other clinical symptoms I have ever had was long time before my breakdown, completely random, one off, and purely physiological -- I was 100% sure that I wasn't dying while all my symptoms were screaming that I was -- very surreal experience).