Fort Worth is a city with a long tradition of toughing it out—working-class roots, a substantial military presence at NAS JRB Fort Worth, aerospace and defense employers who run on demanding schedules, a strong first responder community, and a cultural ethic of putting your head down and getting it done. That same strength can make it harder to acknowledge anxiety when it shows up, and harder still to ask for help. But anxiety doesn’t get better with more willpower, and what we see most often is patients who waited years longer than they needed to before walking through the door.
Our location at 6500 West Freeway, Suite 700 sits on I-30 in the Ridgmar area west of downtown, near the Ridglea and Cultural District neighborhoods. Patients coming from across Tarrant County—Fort Worth, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, North Richland Hills, Keller, Benbrook, Burleson, Crowley, and Weatherford—can typically reach us in 20 minutes or less. The location is also a short drive from NAS JRB Fort Worth and Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth campus. We’re open Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM and Saturday from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, with same-week appointments available.
Anxiety is the body’s natural alarm system—useful for getting out of the way of a moving car or focusing on a deadline. But when that alarm starts firing without a real threat, or won’t turn off after the threat has passed, anxiety stops being a normal response and starts being a clinical condition. Anxiety disorders affect the brain’s threat-detection systems, the hormonal stress response, and the way the body and mind process uncertainty. They’re not character flaws and they’re not the result of not trying hard enough. They are treatable medical conditions, and most people who get specialty care see meaningful improvement.
There’s an important distinction between everyday anxiety—the kind everyone experiences before a presentation or a difficult conversation—and an anxiety disorder. Everyone gets nervous; that’s not what we treat. We treat anxiety that’s persistent, that’s out of proportion to the actual situation, that interferes with sleep, work, relationships, or quality of life, and that doesn’t respond to the usual coping strategies that work for ordinary stress. For people running hard for years, the line between “this is just my life” and “this is a treatable condition” often goes unrecognized for a long time.
Anxiety isn’t one condition—it’s a family of related conditions that respond to different combinations of treatment. We treat the full range:
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Persistent, excessive worry about a range of everyday concerns—work, finances, family, health, deployment, the next storm—that’s hard to control and that’s been present most days for at least six months. GAD often comes with physical symptoms: muscle tension, sleep problems, fatigue, irritability, restlessness, difficulty concentrating.
Panic disorder. Sudden, intense episodes of fear that come with physical symptoms—racing heart, shortness of breath, chest tightness, dizziness, nausea, the feeling that something is terribly wrong. Many panic attacks are mistaken for heart attacks, and many patients arrive at our clinic after an ER visit cleared them medically. Panic disorder can also come with agoraphobia, where the fear of having a panic attack in public causes avoidance of certain places or situations.
Social anxiety disorder. Persistent fear of social situations, performance situations, or being judged or evaluated by others—often to the point of avoiding work meetings, presentations, social gatherings, dating, or making phone calls. In tight-knit working-class and military communities, social anxiety sometimes hides behind quietness or “keeping to myself” rather than visible avoidance.
Performance anxiety. Anxiety specifically tied to high-pressure situations—presentations, evaluations, certifications, qualifications, tests of skill or readiness. Common in military, aerospace, defense, and first responder roles where performance is regularly evaluated.
Specific phobias. Intense, persistent fear of a specific object or situation—flying, driving, heights, needles, certain animals, enclosed spaces—that triggers avoidance and disrupts daily life. Phobias often respond well to focused exposure-based treatment.
Illness anxiety (health anxiety). Persistent worry about having or developing a serious illness, often despite repeated medical reassurance. Illness anxiety is its own clinical condition and is treatable, even when ordinary reassurance hasn’t worked.
Anxiety related to medical conditions, work, deployment, or life transitions. Anxiety that develops in response to a serious diagnosis, a major life change, a deployment, a transition to civilian life, a loss, or a period of sustained stress. This is often where treatment can move quickly because the trigger is identifiable and the underlying nervous system was healthy before.
Anxiety presents differently in different people, but the symptoms tend to fall into three areas:
Physical symptoms. Racing heart, rapid breathing or shortness of breath, sweating, trembling, muscle tension (often jaw, neck, shoulders), gastrointestinal symptoms, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, sleep disruption. Many anxiety patients first see a primary care doctor or visit the ER for these physical symptoms before the anxiety diagnosis is made.
Emotional and cognitive symptoms. Persistent worry, racing thoughts, difficulty concentrating, irritability, feeling on edge, catastrophic thinking, fear of losing control, intrusive “what if” scenarios that won’t stop.
Behavioral symptoms. Avoiding situations that trigger anxiety, procrastination, seeking constant reassurance, checking behaviors, social withdrawal, sleep changes, increased use of alcohol to cope (a common pattern in working-class and military culture). In high-functioning patients, anxiety often hides behind overworking or staying constantly busy rather than visible avoidance.
Anxiety frequently shows up alongside other mental health conditions. Depression and anxiety together are extremely common—each amplifies the other and treating only one usually doesn’t work. Anxiety often accompanies OCD, PTSD (particularly in veterans), ADHD, and substance use disorders. Sleep disorders both cause and are caused by anxiety. Chronic medical conditions—diabetes, thyroid disease, cardiac conditions, autoimmune disorders—often have an anxiety component that deserves its own treatment.
During your first visit, we assess the full picture rather than just the most obvious symptom. Treatment plans that address the actual constellation of what’s going on tend to work better than plans that target one diagnosis in isolation.
Fort Worth has one of the larger military-connected populations in North Texas, between NAS JRB Fort Worth and the broader veteran community that’s chosen to settle here. It also has a substantial first responder community across Fort Worth Fire Department, Fort Worth PD, Tarrant County Sheriff’s, MedStar EMS, and the many suburban departments. Anxiety in these populations often gets overlooked because the conversation tends to focus on PTSD or depression, but the anxiety patterns are real and deserve their own treatment:
Deployment cycle anxiety. Pre-deployment, during deployment, and reintegration each carry their own anxiety profile. Spouses and children of deployed service members often carry sustained anxiety that doesn’t get named because the focus is on the deployed member. We treat the family side of deployment, not just the service member side.
Transition-to-civilian-life anxiety. Veterans leaving active duty often face an identity transition, a career transition, a health-care transition, and a community transition all at once. The anxiety this generates is significant and often peaks 6-18 months after separation when the initial adjustment energy has run out. Treatment can address it directly.
Cumulative occupational anxiety in first responders. Fire, EMS, law enforcement, and dispatch personnel carry chronic activation from years of high-stakes work. This often shows up as GAD, sleep problems, panic attacks during ordinary calls, or anxiety on the days before or after shift. Cumulative occupational anxiety is real, even when the specific job hasn’t produced PTSD.
Career and clearance considerations. Many service members and contractors worry that seeking mental health treatment will affect their career or clearance. The reality is more nuanced than the rumor: seeking anxiety treatment generally does not affect career standing or clearance status, and the Department of Defense has explicitly discouraged the assumption that mental health treatment is disqualifying. Specific situations vary; we can discuss your particular concerns at your first visit.
We are in-network with Tricare and coordinate with VA care when patients are also using VA benefits.
Military culture, Cowtown culture, first responder culture, working-class culture, and the broader Texas ethic share a strong “handle it yourself” expectation. That mindset works for many things; it doesn’t work for anxiety. Anxiety doesn’t get better with more discipline or more grit. The nervous system has learned a pattern of activation that it can’t unlearn without help, and the longer the symptoms run unaddressed, the more they shape sleep, relationships, work, and quality of life. Drinking helps in the short term and makes everything worse in the long term. Staying busy works until it doesn’t.
Asking for help isn’t a failure of toughness. It’s the same problem-solving instinct applied to a different kind of problem—one that responds to the right tools but doesn’t respond to willpower alone. The patients we see most often tell us, after a few sessions, that they wish they had come in years sooner.
Beyond the military and first responder context, certain patterns show up frequently in our Fort Worth patient population. Naming them isn’t about defining anyone by their stressors—it’s about recognizing that some of what people are carrying is shaped by the realities of life here:
Aerospace, defense, and industrial workplace anxiety. Workers at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth campus, Bell Textron, BNSF Railway, and the surrounding aerospace and manufacturing employers carry the chronic stress of high-stakes, safety-critical work. Performance evaluations, certifications, security clearance maintenance, and shift demands all add up. Anxiety from a high-pressure industrial career is real and treatable.
Financial and housing stress. Fort Worth has grown rapidly, housing costs have climbed faster than wages for many residents, and the financial pressure on working-class and lower-middle-class families is significant. Financial anxiety is one of the most common drivers of GAD, panic, and sleep problems. We don’t have a fix for the cost-of-living curve, but we have effective treatment for what financial stress does to the nervous system over time.
Commute and driving anxiety on Tarrant County corridors. I-30, I-820 (the Loop), I-35W, US-287, and the surrounding high-speed corridors carry heavy traffic, and serious accidents are common. Driving anxiety, panic attacks while driving, and chronic commute-related GAD are real and very treatable.
Healthcare worker anxiety. Nurses, techs, and physicians at JPS Health Network, Texas Health Harris Methodist, Baylor Scott & White All Saints, Cook Children’s, and the broader Fort Worth health systems carry significant anxiety loads. Healthcare worker anxiety often goes unaddressed because of the same “I’m supposed to take care of others” framing that keeps clinicians from seeking care.
Community vigilance after recent regional events. Recent DFW-area events, including the May 2023 Allen Outlets shooting, created lasting vigilance for some patients around crowded public spaces. For some this is PTSD-related; for others it shows up as ordinary anxiety. Either way, treatment can help.
Living in North Texas creates conditions that interact with anxiety in ways patients in milder climates don’t experience. We’ve noticed several patterns worth naming:
Spring severe weather and storm anxiety. Tornado Alley runs straight through Tarrant County, and March through June brings warnings, watches, and the kind of storms that have left real marks on Fort Worth communities. The 2000 Fort Worth tornado is still in living memory for many residents. For patients prone to anxiety, watch boxes and warnings can drive significant symptom spikes—racing thoughts, sleep disruption, hypervigilance, panic.
Winter weather and Uri anticipatory anxiety. Since the February 2021 winter storm and grid failure, many North Texas patients now experience anxiety during winter weather forecasts that would have been unremarkable before. Even when the forecast doesn’t materialize, the days of checking heaters, pipes, water supplies, and elderly relatives can drive sustained activation.
Fireworks, gunfire, and startle-related anxiety. Fort Worth sees significant fireworks activity around July 4th and New Year’s, and rural areas across Tarrant and Parker County have audible recreational gunfire most weekends. For veterans, first responders, and others with elevated baseline arousal, the startle response can drive panic or feed chronic anxiety—even without combat-related PTSD. Treatment can help reduce both the reactivity and the dread.
Summer heat and sleep. North Texas summers are long and hot, which affects sleep quality. Poor sleep amplifies every anxiety symptom—racing thoughts, irritability, panic susceptibility, intrusive worry.
Our clinic offers a comprehensive range of anxiety treatments designed to work together. There is no single best treatment for anxiety—the right plan depends on the specific anxiety disorder, the severity of symptoms, your previous treatment history, and your own preferences. We talk through the options with you and build a plan that fits.
Medication can be a meaningful part of anxiety treatment, particularly when symptoms are severe enough to interfere with daily life or to make therapy difficult to engage with. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are typically first-line for most anxiety disorders, with strong evidence for GAD, social anxiety, and panic disorder. Common options include sertraline, escitalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, venlafaxine, and duloxetine.
Buspirone is a non-SSRI option specifically approved for GAD that doesn’t carry the dependency risk of benzodiazepines and doesn’t have the sexual or weight side effects that some SSRIs do. It’s often a good option for patients who haven’t tolerated SSRIs well.
Beta-blockers like propranolol can be useful for performance anxiety and specific situations where physical symptoms are the main problem—worth considering for service members preparing for evaluations, first responders managing situational nerves, presenters, and anyone whose anxiety shows up most acutely in specific high-pressure moments.
Our medication management services in Fort Worth are led by Dr. Zachary Sullivan, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist, alongside Alexa Westbrook Quintanilla, DNP, our doctorally-prepared psychiatric nurse practitioner. Together they oversee careful monitoring of dosage, side effects, and overall effectiveness. We prioritize finding the right medication at the right dose with minimal side effects, which often takes some adjustment. Regular follow-ups ensure changes can be made promptly.
Many anxiety patients come in with questions about benzodiazepines—alprazolam (Xanax), lorazepam (Ativan), clonazepam (Klonopin), diazepam (Valium). Sometimes they’ve been prescribed them by a primary care provider and want to know whether to continue. Sometimes they’ve heard concerning things about dependency and want to know what their alternatives are. Sometimes they’re already taking them daily and want to taper. For veterans and first responders specifically, the combination of benzodiazepines with alcohol can be dangerous, and we approach this honestly.
Our general philosophy: benzodiazepines can be helpful in specific short-term situations—a few days during an acute crisis, occasional use for a flight or a medical procedure, bridging the gap while an SSRI takes effect—but they’re not great long-term anxiety treatments. They carry real risks of tolerance (needing higher doses to get the same effect), physical dependence, rebound anxiety when missed or stopped, and interactions with alcohol and opioids that can be dangerous. They also don’t actually fix anxiety; they suppress symptoms while the underlying condition continues.
For new anxiety patients, we typically prefer SSRIs, SNRIs, buspirone, CBT, and—for treatment-resistant cases—TMS or ketamine, all of which have stronger long-term evidence. For patients already on benzodiazepines who want to taper, we develop slow, careful plans rather than abrupt stops, because abrupt benzodiazepine withdrawal can be dangerous. The goal is always what works best for you—not a rigid rule.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most well-studied treatments for anxiety, with strong evidence across GAD, social anxiety, panic disorder, and specific phobias. CBT helps patients identify and revise the thought patterns that drive anxiety, build skills for managing physical symptoms, and gradually face situations that have been avoided. For military, veteran, and first responder populations specifically, CBT tends to land well because it gives patients clear, structured tools and doesn’t require extended verbal processing of feelings.
For panic disorder, agoraphobia, social anxiety, and specific phobias, exposure-based approaches are particularly effective. Exposure isn’t about forcing yourself into uncomfortable situations; it’s about systematic, paced practice that teaches the nervous system that the feared outcome doesn’t happen, or that you can handle it when it does. Done correctly, it’s one of the most reliable ways to actually shrink anxiety over time rather than just managing it.
We provide therapy referrals to trusted local therapists when therapy is the right next step, and we coordinate care so that your medication and therapy work together rather than at cross purposes.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive treatment that uses targeted magnetic pulses to stimulate areas of the brain involved in mood and anxiety regulation. TMS is FDA-approved for depression—including depression with anxious distress—and has shown meaningful benefit for anxiety symptoms, particularly when medication and therapy alone have not been sufficient—including in veteran populations where standard treatments haven’t worked.
For patients who can’t take SSRIs, who haven’t responded to multiple medications, who want to avoid medication entirely, or who specifically want to avoid benzodiazepines, TMS is an important non-medication option. Sessions are conducted in a comfortable clinical setting, easily accessible from I-30, I-820, or Camp Bowie Boulevard, typically over 4-6 weeks. The procedure is well-tolerated, requires no sedation or recovery time, and patients can drive themselves home and return to normal activities the same day.
Ketamine IV therapy is a newer, fast-acting option for severe or treatment-resistant anxiety, particularly when significant depression accompanies the anxiety. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which work through serotonin and can take weeks to show effect, ketamine acts on the glutamate system and can produce noticeable symptom relief within hours or days.
Ketamine therapy is delivered under medical supervision in a series of carefully monitored sessions in our Fort Worth clinic. We integrate it into a broader treatment plan—typically alongside medication management and, when appropriate, therapy—because the window of reduced symptom intensity that ketamine opens can be a powerful time to make other changes that anxiety has been blocking. Ketamine is not appropriate for everyone, and we’ll have a clear conversation about whether it’s the right fit during your evaluation.
In-person appointments in Fort Worth provide a valuable opportunity for direct interaction with experienced clinicians. Whether you are coming from Fort Worth, the Mid-Cities, Keller, Burleson, or Weatherford, these sessions allow for thorough assessments, real conversations about treatment options, and the kind of steady, present care that virtual visits can’t fully replicate.
For anxiety in particular, being physically present matters. Clinicians can observe the signs of activation—shallow breathing, restlessness, jaw tension—that are easy to miss on video. We also pace sessions so you leave feeling steadier, not more activated.
Our Fort Worth clinic is led by a board-certified psychiatrist and a doctorally-prepared psychiatric nurse practitioner, both with training in mood, anxiety, and related disorders:
Dr. Zachary Sullivan, MD — Board-certified Psychiatrist. View profile.
Alexa Westbrook Quintanilla, DNP — Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (Doctor of Nursing Practice). View profile.
Our Fort Worth team takes a patient-first, evidence-based approach: treatment plans built around your specific symptoms, life, and preferences; transparent conversations about what each option can and can’t do; and a steady pace that respects how you’re actually doing. With same-week appointments, extended hours, in-network Tricare coverage, and a location that fits Tarrant County life, we’re committed to delivering specialty anxiety care that respects who you are and where you come from.
Starting anxiety treatment can feel daunting—especially when reaching out is itself an anxiety-provoking task. Your first visit is designed to be welcoming, thorough, and unhurried. Most first appointments run 60 to 90 minutes—long enough to actually hear your story without rushing through it.
We’ll talk about what’s bringing you in, how symptoms have been affecting your life, your history, and your goals. We’ll discuss treatment options and answer your questions—including the questions you’ve been afraid to ask. You won’t be pushed into anything; we’ll come up with a plan together. For active-duty members and patients with clearance or career concerns, your first visit is also a good time to ask the questions you’ve been carrying.
The comprehensive evaluation includes a detailed clinical interview, standardized anxiety assessments, screening for co-occurring conditions (depression, OCD, PTSD, ADHD, substance use, sleep disorders, medical conditions that can cause anxiety symptoms), and—when appropriate and with your permission—input from family members or other healthcare providers. This process helps identify the full picture of what’s going on, which is the only way to build a treatment plan that actually addresses it.
We also explore your history with anxiety, any previous treatments, and the strategies you’ve already been using to cope. That history matters; it tells us what’s been tried, what’s helped, and what to do differently this time.
Following the evaluation, we collaborate with you to create a personalized treatment plan that fits your needs and preferences. The plan outlines recommended treatments, expected timeline, and how we’ll measure progress. Goals in anxiety treatment often start practical—better sleep, less reactivity, being able to do specific things that anxiety has been blocking—and expand from there into the broader work of reclaiming the life you want.
We encourage open communication and ongoing feedback so that treatment stays responsive to your evolving needs. Recovery from anxiety isn’t always linear; we expect that and adjust the plan accordingly.
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