Anxiety Is Not a Passing Mosquito that Stings Me explains that anxiety is not something outside the person that could attack them at any moment (as if it were a mosquito). The book also explains that anxiety is not inevitable; rather it is produced by certain behaviours in the individual that make their nervous system feel at risk and this is when the symptoms we call anxiety appear. The text describes these behaviours and how to change them. My personal and professional experience tells me that when a person ceases to repeat these anxiety-generating behaviours, the symptoms steadily disappear.