I've struggled with anxiety for over a decade, and therapy helped me understand that my anxious thoughts aren't a permanent personality trait. Research from Harvard suggests that about 85% of people who seek treatment for anxiety see improvement, but that number drops when we cling to labels like 'I'm an anxious person.' Calling yourself anxious creates a fixed identity, making it harder to challenge those thoughts because you believe they define you. I used to think labeling my anxiety made it more manageable, but now I wonder if it just gave me an excuse to avoid things that scare me. Should we really embrace labels as a way to understand ourselves, or does that just trap us in a narrative that's hard to break free from?