Anxiety is not just worry. It is a whole relationship with your own mind that has gotten out of hand. A script that runs on autopilot, generating worst case scenarios with remarkable conviction, pulling you out of the present and into a future that hasn't happened yet. And the harder you try to stop it the louder it gets.
Anxiety Therapy in Chicago — Colton Straus, LSW
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It might look fine from the outside. You are showing up, functioning, delivering. But underneath everything there is a current running that never fully shuts off.
It lives in the body first. Tension that doesn't release. Sleep that's light or broken. A jaw that has been clenched so long relaxed feels foreign. A restlessness that makes stillness uncomfortable, like stopping would let something catch up with you.
It lives in the mind too. Replaying conversations that already happened. Rehearsing ones that haven't. Running worst case scenarios before they have any reason to exist. Second guessing decisions you already made. A mental chatter that follows you into the moments that are supposed to be good ones and quietly ruins them.
It shows up in how you make decisions. Simple choices taking on enormous weight. A negativity bias so reliable you have started to trust it more than the evidence in front of you. A chronic sense that something is about to go wrong even when nothing is.
For a lot of people in their 20s and 30s anxiety is so woven into daily life that it has stopped feeling like something that could be different. It just feels like being a thoughtful person in a complicated world. It feels like the price of caring about things.
But there is a difference between genuine attentiveness and a mind that has gotten stuck in a loop it can't find its way out of. One serves you. The other just makes everything harder.
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Anxiety therapy with me starts by getting genuinely curious about what the anxiety is actually doing rather than just trying to make it stop.
Anxiety almost always has a function. It is managing something, protecting something, trying to prevent something that felt genuinely threatening at some point. When we understand what that is the anxiety stops being the enemy and starts being information. That shift changes everything about how we work with it.
We look at the patterns underneath. Where did this way of relating to uncertainty come from? What does the anxiety say about what you believe is going to happen if you stop being vigilant? What early experiences taught your nervous system that this level of alertness was necessary? Those questions are not just intellectually interesting. They are the map to understanding why the anxiety keeps showing up even when you know on some level that it is not serving you.
We also work practically. Understanding where anxiety comes from is one thing. Building a different relationship with it in real time is another. We work on specific tools for staying present with difficult thoughts and feelings without being controlled by them. For moving toward what actually matters to you even when the anxiety says it is not safe to. That combination of depth and practicality is what makes the change last.
My approach is direct, warm, and genuinely interested in what is specifically happening for you. Not the generic version of anxiety.
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Anxiety that goes unaddressed does not stay the same size. It shapes your decisions, narrows your world, and quietly convinces you that the hypervigilance is just who you are. It is not.
When anxiety is understood and worked with rather than fought against something opens up. The body starts to feel safer. The mind gets quieter in ways that feel earned rather than forced. The decisions start coming from clarity instead of fear. You stop managing your life around the anxiety and start actually living it.
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A lot of people come in having been anxious for so long they have forgotten what it feels like not to be. That is not a personality trait. It is a pattern. And patterns, once understood, can change. Honesty over comfort — steady and warm, but not afraid to name what's actually going on.
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Ready to take the next step? Schedule a free consultation with Colton at our Logan Square and Avondale location and see if it feels like a good fit.