Many people suffer from severe anxiety.
This is not the occasional worry about a test or job interview or the panic one feels when a child is late coming home. Intrusive, unwanted, repetitive thoughts invade. In an effort to banish them, rituals are performed out of a feeling of urgent need. The memory of a terrifying past event keeps returning in frightening, intrusive form. High anxiety is linked to things such as snakes or spiders and to situations like driving over a bridge or being trapped in an elevator.