You experience panic attacks
Of course, if you experience panic attacks when you are afraid of something, this is just a normal reaction to extreme fear, so you don’t suffer from anxiety disorders. But if your panic attacks are frequent and you don’t always have an exact trigger to explain this reaction at some point, it can be a sign that you have anxiety.
“A lot of people have panic attacks, way more people than have panic disorder. It’s important to remember what a panic attack is: It’s a full application of your fight-or-flight response. That is an evolutionarily adaptive function,” says Fisher.