Is It Just Anxiety—or PTSD? Understanding the Difference with Anxiety & Trauma Therapy NYC

You might know the feeling: tension in your chest, racing thoughts, a rising sense of alertness like your body is preparing for something bad. Maybe it comes before a big meeting, after reading a triggering news story, or seemingly out of nowhere. But here’s the question many clients bring into session: Is this just anxiety? Or is there something deeper going on?

As a therapist offering Anxiety Therapy NYC, and with deep experience treating trauma and PTSD, I often help clients explore this very question. Understanding whether you're experiencing anxiety, trauma, or both can bring tremendous clarity—and ensure you're getting the right kind of support. Let’s break it down together.

Turbulence vs. Crash: A Metaphor for Anxiety and Trauma

When anxiety strikes, it’s like hitting turbulence on a plane—unsettling, but not always dangerous. Trauma is more like surviving a crash, and your body remembers.

Photo by Suhyeon Choi; Uploaded from Unsplash on 5/7/25.

Imagine you're on a plane. Everything's fine, until turbulence hits. Your heart starts pounding, your eyes scan the cabin, and you check the flight attendants to see if they look calm or concerned. You might think: How bad is this going to get? This is anxiety—your nervous system doing its job, sensing a potential threat and trying to prepare you.

Now imagine something very different: the plane crashes. Or it nearly does. You or someone you love almost dies. Even if it’s not physical, something happens that overwhelms your sense of safety, identity, or belonging. You freeze. The experience doesn’t get processed. And long after it’s over, your system is still acting like it’s about to happen again.

That’s the difference between anxiety and trauma.

• Anxiety disorders are like your internal alert system getting stuck in overdrive—generalized worry, social anxiety, obsessive thoughts, panic attacks.

• PTSD and Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) are what happen when the system never resets after a crash (or a series of crashes), and you keep re-experiencing, avoiding, or reacting to the memory, even when you’re not in danger anymore.

Both conditions affect the nervous system. But trauma often lives in the body as a remembered terror—a survival pattern you didn’t choose and may not even be fully aware of.

Many Clients Come in for Anxiety, and Discover There’s More Underneath

It happens all the time. Someone comes to therapy because they’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or burnt out. We begin by getting curious about what this anxiety is trying to say. Through mindfulness, grounding, and compassionate inquiry, we might ask:

• What’s this feeling protecting you from?

• What does it need right now?

• What does it remind you of?

And suddenly, something surfaces: a childhood memory, a past relationship, a moment they’ve never put words to. Something they’ve tried not to feel for a long time. The avoidance says it all: I don’t want to go there. And that’s often the hallmark of trauma.

Sometimes, we find ourselves experiencing physical sensations or emotional reactions that feel out of proportion to the current moment. That can be a clue that the past is still playing out in the body, even if the mind doesn’t quite have access to the details. For some, this shows up in tightness in the chest, difficulty speaking, or a sudden desire to flee a situation without fully understanding why.

This is the turning point. What seemed like “just anxiety” starts to look like anxiety*—anxiety with an asterisk. Anxiety that needs a different approach.

Why This Distinction Matters

Coping strategies can only do so much. To truly heal, Anxiety and Trauma Therapy in NYC helps you reach the deeper emotional roots—where trauma and learned fear live.

Photo by Zach Reiner; Uploaded from Unsplash on 5/7/25.

In a world that treats anxiety like a productivity issue or a thought problem, many therapists miss the deeper story. You might get tools to challenge your thinking, breathe deeply, or distract yourself. Those tools have value. But if your nervous system has emotionally learned that something about life or being human is inherently unsafe, cognitive tools alone won’t heal that.

A trauma-informed approach goes deeper. It doesn’t just treat the anxiety—it helps resolve the fear that created it.

If you’ve tried mindfulness or meditation and found that it actually made you feel worse, not better, you’re not alone. When trauma is involved, these tools can sometimes activate rather than soothe. That’s not because you’re doing it wrong—it’s because your nervous system might need a different on-ramp to safety. Therapy can help you find practices that meet you where you are.

When Anxiety and Trauma Overlap

Here in NYC, symptoms of anxiety and trauma often blur:

• Hypervigilance that looks like high-functioning stress

• Insomnia that won’t go away no matter how many sleep apps you try

• Perfectionism or performance fear masked as ambition

• Overworking as a strategy to avoid emotional discomfort

These might be signs of an anxious temperament, or they might be survival strategies born from unprocessed pain. Sometimes, the “turbulence” of everyday stress is actually brushing against the memory of a crash.

Culturally, New Yorkers are often rewarded for their ability to push through, stay productive, and tolerate discomfort. But this can backfire when it reinforces avoidance. Avoidance may look like strength on the outside, but internally it can prolong suffering and disconnect us from the parts of ourselves that are still waiting to be acknowledged and healed.

Part of my work in Anxiety and Trauma Therapy NYC is creating a space where we can safely explore what’s underneath. When you can sit with those sensations in a supported way, you start to see whether this is current stress, emotional overload, or a body remembering what it wants to forget.

How I Help Clients Explore and Heal the Root

In my practice, I work integratively—blending EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic awareness, and trauma-informed dialogue. Whether your struggle is rooted in anxiety, trauma, or both, we move at your pace. Together we might:

• Track your body’s signals and get curious about what they mean

• Gently explore avoidance patterns and what they’re protecting

• Offer new, safer emotional experiences to support nervous system repair

• Reconnect you to your agency, wisdom, and Self

Healing is a journey inward. Anxiety and Trauma Therapy in NYC supports your step-by-step exploration of the inner landscape, where calm, clarity, and freedom become possible.

Photo by Ashley Batz; Uploaded from Unsplash on 5/7/25.

Healing often involves helping the nervous system learn what safety actually feels like. If you’ve spent most of your life in survival mode, calm can feel foreign—or even threatening. Therapy isn’t just about symptom relief. It’s about helping you create the conditions to feel grounded, connected, and free to be fully yourself.

This isn’t about reliving the past. It’s about unlearning the messages that came from surviving it.

What to Know If You’re Wondering About Yourself

If you’re reading this and wondering, Is it anxiety? Is it trauma? Is it both?—you’re already on the right path. Sometimes, just naming the question creates a shift.

The truth is, whether you’re dealing with overactive worry or unprocessed trauma, you deserve support that gets to the root. You deserve a therapist who won’t just give you coping strategies, but who’s willing to walk with you as you understand, heal, and rewire your inner world.

You don’t have to figure this out alone. You don’t have to power through, push it down, or perform your way out of pain. There’s another way.

I’d be honored to help.

Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation and let’s talk about what you’re navigating—and how we might approach it, together. Or check out my website for more information.