Why You Might Feel Anxious After You Start Feeling Better
You've been doing the work. Therapy’s going well, your symptoms have eased, and for the first time in a while, you feel like you can finally breathe. But then, something unexpected creeps in. Anxiety. Again.
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Many people, especially high-achieving women of colour, experience a confusing wave of anxiety right when they expect peace. It can feel like a setback, but it’s often a sign of deeper healing in progress.
So why does anxiety show up when things are finally going right?
Let’s unpack that, clinically and compassionately.
1. Your Brain Is Recalibrating
Healing doesn’t happen in a straight line. After a period of intense emotional stress or burnout, your nervous system might take time to adjust to your new “normal.”
Think of your brain like a thermostat. When it’s been stuck in survival mode, running high on cortisol and adrenaline, it gets used to constant threat detection (Lanius et al., 2010). Once things calm down, that same system can misinterpret peace as unfamiliar, or even unsafe.
Your mind might start scanning for danger out of habit, not necessity. This “false alarm” is common and doesn’t mean your progress isn’t real.
2. You’re Feeling Again
Therapy often lifts the numbing fog that once helped you cope. That emotional numbing, common in depression, trauma, and chronic stress, isn’t always just sadness. It can also blunt joy, hope, and connection (Frewen & Lanius, 2006).
As you start to feel better, your emotional range widens. But along with the good, anxiety and fear can come through, too. This is especially true for those who’ve had to stay “strong” for everyone else.
If you're a woman of colour, there may also be added cultural pressure to appear unshakable. Feeling vulnerable can bring up anxiety about being seen as weak or too emotional, even when you're just being human (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006).
3. Growth Feels Risky
As healing deepens, life often opens up, new choices, relationships, boundaries, or even career changes. That’s exciting, but it can also feel terrifying.
New opportunities might trigger your inner critic or imposter syndrome. This is especially common in high-achieving individuals who feel like they’ve always had to prove themselves.
A 2021 study found that impostor feelings are significantly associated with anxiety and perfectionism in professional women of colour (Cokley et al., 2017). So if your brain whispers “This is too good to be true” or “You don’t deserve this,” know that it’s a fear response, not a fact.
4. You’re Noticing What Was Always There
Sometimes, when you start feeling better, you can finally notice what was under the surface all along. Without the fog of constant stress, the deeper layers… unprocessed grief, unresolved trauma, or unmet needs, can start to show up.
This isn’t regression. It’s clarity. You're strong enough now to see what needs attention, and that in itself is progress.
5. Cultural and Intergenerational Layers
For BIPOC women, healing often includes unlearning messages about productivity, strength, and emotional suppression. It’s not just about individual mental health; it’s about surviving systems that weren’t built with you in mind.
Intergenerational trauma can show up as chronic anxiety, perfectionism, or the need to stay hyper-independent. As you start to slow down and care for yourself differently, parts of you may panic: What if I lose everything I’ve worked for?
These fears are valid, even if they’re no longer useful. And therapy can help you rewrite those scripts.
What You Can Do About It
Name it. Remind yourself that post-progress anxiety is common and doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
Stay consistent with therapy. This is often when deeper work begins.
Practice self-compassion. Healing doesn’t mean never feeling anxious; it means responding to anxiety with more awareness and less judgment.
Move at your pace. Just because you feel better doesn’t mean you have to rush into big changes. You get to set the pace of your growth.
You Deserve to Feel Good Without Fear
Feeling anxious after starting to feel better isn’t a sign that you’re broken. It’s a sign that your system is adjusting to new levels of safety and possibility.
You are allowed to feel joy without waiting for the other shoe to drop. You are allowed to trust peace when it comes. And you don’t have to do it alone.
Works Cited
Bryant-Davis, T., & Ocampo, C. (2006). The trauma of racism: Implications for counseling, research, and education. The Counseling Psychologist, 33(4), 574-578.
Cokley, K., McClain, S., Enciso, A., & Martinez, M. (2013). An examination of the impact of minority status stress and imposter feelings on the mental health of diverse ethnic minority college students. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 41(2), 82–95.
Frewen, P. A., & Lanius, R. A. (2006). Toward a psychobiology of posttraumatic self-dysregulation. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1071(1), 110–124.
Lanius, R., Bluhm, R., & Frewen, P. (2010). How understanding the neurobiology of complex post-traumatic stress disorder can inform clinical practice: A social cognitive and affective neuroscience approach. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 122(2), 103–117.
