Anxiety is just a state of feeling anxious.
I was coming here to comment the same. Is it OK to say, 'I really feel I can't talk to them because when I approach them my mouth goes dry, my heart races, and I feel like I can't breathe.' When it's easier to say, 'I feel anxious/have anxiety.'
Also, to wonder whether people with anxiety are really people with anxiety before they walk through their doctor's door, or whether it's only anxiety after they've had that appointment.
A lot of people with anxiety won't engage with medical professionals because of fear. They can barely function because of it, but can't/won't go to the doctor because they fear the label, the medication, admitting it vocally, or even being reported to Social Services. The very idea of getting a diagnosis sends their feelings of anxiety (or hard to breathe, racing heart, dry mouth, nausea, faint-feeling) to increase.
You are right, absolutely, that it is a medical term and that you shouldn't diagnose yourself with a medical condition. But mental health diagnoses are always based on symptoms and very, very rarely on physical things.
I've had various mental health diagnoses for the last 23 years (with a couple of years off where I was fine). I was briefly under emergency care for a while, and I'm still under psychiatric care. Currently, my actual diagnosis is a full sentence including words such as 'psychotic episodes' and 'bipolar tendencies.'
I totally, totally agree that people suffering mental health problems, diagnosed or otherwise, should try to make themselves 'better', by which I mean more able to cope with the world in general. I don't think there's a single, proven way of doing this. CBT works for some people, other people need medication to help quell the anxiety before they're able to discuss it properly with people. I've heard people say antidepressants don't work for them when they've tried one specific medication from one particular group. I can't have SSRIs, for example. They make me manic. I took Venlofaxine for a couple of weeks until we noticed, well, other people noticed, that this flung me into a psychotic state. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work for a lot of people. For depression, I take either a tri-cyclic or a tetra-cyclic. I also take an anti-psychotic, but I was briefly put on a different one that robbed me of my memory, which was pretty scary. Even while knowing the medication that works for me, it sometimes gets thrown out because I have an illness or the dose just fails and needs adjusting.
So, what I'm trying to get across is that all mental illnesses affect people differently, with different symptoms, some of which make it very hard to go to the doctor in the first place. Then, when you get there, it's pretty much trial and error until you hit upon the medication that's actually therapeutic. It's difficult to get people to see that 'antidepressants don't work for me,' should be considered, 'I've tried this antidepressant and this one doesn't work for me.'
It doesn't annoy me when people people say they have anxiety, but it irks me when people want that to be the end, or want to just naturally feel better in a few months without doing anything. But that's my own hang up, and based on the fact that I've worked so hard for the past 7 years and I feel envious that I don't have the option of just hoping it will go away.
Sorry. So ends my essay. I get why it annoys, totally, and I think it's probably overused by people who don't have anxiety. I just also think that it's underused by people who do have anxiety but who haven't managed to get to the doctor for whatever reason. There's a grey area that needs to be carefully observed.
Note: my heart is racing just with the idea of posting, and I probably won't come back because I can feel my throat constricting about it already. It's no offense to those who disagree - it's just I'm protecting my own mental health.