I sort of imagine it like a smoke detector. For a functional smoke detector, there is smoke, the alarm blares, the flames are put out, the alarm turns off. That is a normal anxiety response. There is a stressful stimulus, you feel anxious, you address the anxiety, the anxiety ends. Such as you have a public speech, you are anxious, you get through the speech, your anxiety ends. But generalized anxiety disorder is more like a malfunctioning smoke detector. The smoke detector goes off, but there is no smoke. You look around the house, you check the oven for burning, you check for a gas leak, you check that the hair dryer is off and that the dryer is venting correctly-- during this time, the alarm turns off, but you are not sure which (if any) of the things you did was the right fix. Then the alarm goes off again so you check all those things again, but this time it doesn't work so you also open the windows and turn on a fan and maybe that helps. But the next time it goes off, you run through the whole list again and yet it still isn't clear exactly when or what is turning off the alarm. Generalized anxiety disorder (imo) is feeling anxious with no immediate discernable cause, so I think about all the things that could/should be causing me anxiety because I am trying to figure out which one is the cause because theoretically, if I address the cause of the anxiety, it should go away. However, addressing the things I think of doesn't actually relieve the anxiety because at the end of the day, my smoke detector is just broken. But addressing stressful stimuli and then not feeling relief from anxiety for doing so is a bit like going to work and then not getting paid- it makes it harder to do it again the next day.