how does one feel anxiety?

I almost wish I could relate to your way of experiencing anxiety (not that there's any 'right' way), but I cant imagine it ever becoming hidden from me, even in the sanctuary of my time alone at home. For me, anxiety is ever-present. At the very least, there is a seemingly irreducible minimum of it just being permanently there, diffusely present like bachground radiation. Layered over the top are undulating levels of anxiety which can have different flavours almost and which can spike massively from triggers (and resultant ruminations and post-mortems) that to many NT people would I'm sure seem very slight and dismissable. But could last for hours, days, or weeks for me. Right now, and for several days now, I'm in the middle of a prolonged period of anticpatory dread - awaiting formal confirmation of a specific change in staffing in my workplace that could massively impact how I feel about coming into the office each day. Part of me just wants the bad news over and done with. I hate change in any case, this one would just be more personally unpleasant to deal with it than many others. But even then there will then be the confirmed reality to start feeling sick about instead. The cycle of anxiety never ends, it's just a question of where it reaches that critical mass of overwhelm... or doesn't. My batteries are almost always flat because of it, and I've experienced at least two significant (what I now know to be called) shutdowns in the last three years when things have just become too much. Even then, the anxiety didn't leave me. It's just that I had literally no ability to process anything else other than a quiet room, a ticking clock, and the looping of a hope/despair cycle and all assocuiated thoughts that went with it. 

I think I experience the true absence of anxiety in only two or three contexts:

1. For about 30 seconds to two minutes after waking up from a sleep. In other words, before thoughts truly begin.

2. To some extent, if I've set aside time to try and meditate. Not that I really do that much, and if it gets too routine I seem to become resistant to it.

3. When I get really ill with a flu or something. It's almost a blessed relief in a way because fighting the virus seems to steal any surplus mental/emotional energy that  is normally earmarked for anxiety, and lets me take a brief holiday from myself in the land of delirium. Once recovery properly begins, back the anxiety comes. 

frankly, reading your post, i really can't say we experience anxiety that differently... idk.. you seem more aware of it. i think i just am able to avoid all situations - but then i worry over all that.  you can't avoid things forever. bedtime and evenings are pretty low for me - i've kind of used up all my 'good' energy for the day, and so in the evening and bed is when anxiety has been - until now - kind of hard to 'feel.' but i think it has affected me so much...

i listen to asmr stuff almost every night, usuall sounds of people doing things, but sometimes non people sounds (rain, trains, what not). but often people doing mundane things. currently i like listening to guys solder electronic kits together...

i do feldenkrais, which is similar to meditation. but i hate meditation; feldenkrais i've had to do for twenty years. it hasn't been easy. i think i have ehlers dandros syndrom also... 

best of luck with your anxiety....

frankly, reading your post, i really can't say we experience anxiety that differently... idk.. you seem more aware of it. i think i just am able to avoid all situations - but then i worry over all that.  you can't avoid things forever. bedtime and evenings are pretty low for me - i've kind of used up all my 'good' energy for the day, and so in the evening and bed is when anxiety has been - until now - kind of hard to 'feel.' but i think it has affected me so much...

i listen to asmr stuff almost every night, usuall sounds of people doing things, but sometimes non people sounds (rain, trains, what not). but often people doing mundane things. currently i like listening to guys solder electronic kits together...

i do feldenkrais, which is similar to meditation. but i hate meditation; feldenkrais i've had to do for twenty years. it hasn't been easy. i think i have ehlers dandros syndrom also... 

best of luck with your anxiety....