Anxiety is not a disorder.

Anxiety is nothing more than your brain trying to protect you by steering you away from the things that you have taught it to perceive as a threat. It’s not a disorder; it’s self-defense unmanaged.

Your subconscious is always recording the messages that you relay to it. If you allow yourself to lament something that is required of you, or if you become unsettled in a certain circumstance and stress about it, that event is interpreted by your brain as a source of danger and recorded for later awareness. So your response to it may be heightened into a mortal dread, because your brain is desperate to compel you from harm's way.  Your brain evolved in a time of saber tooth tigers and giant cave bears, and it doesn’t know the difference between a thing you’re not in the mood for and a thing that’ll bite your face off.

The cure for anxiety is self-talk in conjunction with mindfulness. When you pay attention to the messages your brain is feeding back to you, you can analyze them and dismiss them by replacing them with messages that you choose. If you dread crowded places, call yourself out on it. Are these places fraught with danger, or is it your fear alone that makes them uncomfortable? Are you just scaring yourself? Why should you put up with that?

Don’t put up with that. Neutralize those danger signals by countering them with messages chosen to cause you to feel the way you actually want you to feel. Tell yourself aloud and with emotional emphasis that you are safe and happy in such situations, that you’re excited for the opportunities they present. Find the statements that work for you.  Your brain will listen and respond accordingly.  That's a big part of its job.

Anxiety is not a disorder. It’s an ancient tool for survival. What you have to do to overcome it is to cease abandoning yourself to it.  And remember that no one can hurt you with their thoughts.  Your own thoughts are doing all the damage.