Is Anxiety an actual disorder.?

My one friend and myself went to Florida for about a week and a half altogether about a week ago. When we got back it took her two days to come back to school. When she got back she said that she didnt come to school because of her anxiety.
Then she said that she didnt go out with this one boy because she had anxiety about it.
Lke it came out of no where.
So:
Is anxiety an actual disorder.?
Do you think this stuff could be classified as anxiety.?
Do you beleive her?


She and her family has a tendency to over react about everything BTW.

Really? Because I think shes faking it. she also has a tendency to delete all her messages constantly and I was like "Omg, you have like OCD dleteing messgaes" so now she thinks she has ocd.

is anxiety an actual disorder ?
yes it is it's classified on the DSM-IV as a disorder, actually with many variations, I personally suffer from Generalized Anxiety Syndrome, with agoraphobia.

Do you think this stuff could be classified as anxiety.?
Yes, it could be an early onset of social phobia, or mild agoraphobia, but based on the boy issue I would say social phobia.

Do you beleive her?
YES I have had anxiety issues for over 16 years ! You as a friend should advice her to get medical attention ASAP, because without help the problem gets worst and worst ( believe me about this one)

OCD causes anxiety... also, but if there's no doctor involved you can't know the real condition, and it might be hypocondria, but still anxiety is very real

yes. i take medication for anxiety everyday. before i was on medication i would go the emergency room all the time thinking i was having a heart attack but it was just anxiety.

If it her entire family and not just her then it could be that she's learned it from her parents or that they all had a really bad experience together one time and it's left them all in distress psychologically.

You're right to think that she could be lying to you. There may have been another reason why she didn't come back from school and she just didn't want to tell you. People often have stomach problems coming back from holidays, changes in weather alone can have adverse effects on people and they don't even need to have gone abroad to be affected nor do they always know that this is why they feel unwell.

BUT long story short anxiety does exist as a disorder and a very unpleasant one at that. its triggers can be rational, irrational or nonexistent.

The fact that she seems to know about anxiety attacks doesn't necessarily mean that she has them and we can't know or even guess from what you've said whether she truly has them or not but yes, in short she could have anxiety attacks (and so could you!) because it's possible.