[poszlem]

Fear is an immediate, emotional response to a known or definite threat.

Anxiety is a more prolonged emotion that arises from an anticipated or potential threat or a situation that's uncertain. Unlike fear, the source of anxiety might not be real or immediate.

[lloeki]

From my experience, the way I'd describe it is:

- fear is transient, you feel it in the moment and then it goes away. You can then remember "boy I was scared" and feel the memory of fear but not fear itself. You can project and imagine a situation where you'd be scared.

- anxiety is a persistent state of stressful anguish. There are peaks and troughs. During peaks it can be overwhelming and look like, trigger, or mix with fear. During troughs anxiety is still there somewhere deep, it merely takes a backseat to other emotions. In every moment it biases every process your mind undertakes.

[anon373839]

Fear is a response to a perceived threat. For example, in a panic attack you fear dying, but you are in no more danger than anyone else.

Anxiety is a kind of fuzzy term because it encompasses an overall pattern and cycle as well as the associated feelings. But a useful distinction is that anxiety is driven by avoidance of fear of some uncertainty, and exposure and acclimation to that fear (without avoidance) is what extinguishes the anxiety.

Avoidance can take almost any form, but common examples include worry and rumination, procrastination, compulsive rituals like hand-washing or internet research, self-medicating, and superstitious behaviors. And of course, literal avoidance.

[lr4444lr]

I think this splits hairs. Yes, fear means "perceived" threat. You could be acculturated to handling venomous snakes, but that doesn't male the average modern society dweller pathologically fearful of the same snakes. Anxiety is about the distorted anticipation of a threat. E.g., the snake handler has been doing this his whole life, but after seeing his brother accidentally step on one, get bitten, and die, he starts fearing that every one of his future interactions with snakes will be so likely to entail that outcome that he refuses to touch them anymore, and can't avoid a panic attack if he's in the room with one, despite all his past skill.

[anon373839]

I was responding to a suggestion that fear occurs when the trigger is a “real” threat. But of course, the feeling is the same regardless of whether the hazard is real.

Also, since I’ve already been accused of hair-splitting, I might as well point out:

> can't avoid a panic attack

There’s no need to avoid a panic attack. In fact, trying to avoid a panic attack feeds the panic.