Our work and co-workers are the sources of many of our frustrations. You have to work, so you can't avoid the stress. Many therapists believe that panic attacks that truly terrify us are physiologically and chemically different from our ordinary fears and anxiety. Panic disorders and agoraphobia, which is the most debilitating anxiety disorder and frequently associated with panic states, are discussed in the next section. Most of us also become afraid of the dark at age 3 or 4, and gradually overcome it to varying degrees.
Animals too seem to have inborn tendencies to fear certain things.
Many humans fear snakes, rats, speaking, making mistakes, and other things. Perhaps vague situations, like the dark, provide richer settings for fantasizing what might happen. For unknown reasons, social phobias and panic attacks often start between 15 and 25 years of age. As with anxiety, women are three or four times more likely than men to have a specific phobia. That's the best we can do.