With anxiety borne from mental illness, at least in my experience, I cannot be sure if the anxiety I feel is more related to my internal state or external state

With anxiety borne from mental illness, at least in my experience, I cannot be sure if the anxiety I feel is more related to my internal state or external state. For instance, on a day when I am doing good, I eat a delicious meal, I am happy with it, on a day when I am doing bad, I eat a delicious meal I focus on the calories and my overall diet and my weight, etc. In theory at least, with perfect mental health I will be able to confidently relate my feelings to the external world and be able to reason about changing the external world to deal with real anxieties rooted in perceptions of real danger. I think for people who suffer from mental illness related to anxiety, or at least for me, the goal is not to completely eliminate anxiety but to be able to know that the anxiety I feel is reasonable and appropriate. (Similarly for my chronic depression) Of course the line between reasonable and unreasonable anxiety is not always clear. The far points are clear, being anxious about some stranger approaching you with a gun, that's reasonable, being unable to get out of bed because you are certain everything is going to go wrong no matter what, that is unreasonable. But should you be anxious about this person because you did that thing but you have a history with this person and... that sort of thing is fuzzy.