How to tell them apart

Worry is mostly words. It sounds like a voice in your head making plans for things that have not happened. It is quieter in the body than you would expect, and it goes on for hours.

Panic is mostly body. Heart, breath, hands, a feeling that something terrible is happening right now. It comes up fast, it peaks, and it comes down, usually inside twenty minutes even when it feels like it will not.

The fear of being judged has a particular signature. Your attention swings inward. You start watching yourself from the outside, imagining how you are coming across, and then you go home and replay the whole thing for two hours.