There is in fact a difference between a nervous disposition and a person who suffers from an anxiety disorder. While being "neurotic" can be a personality trait, an generalized anxiety is a condition caused by the chemical makeup in the brain and must be diagnosed by a doctor.
There are as many forms of anxiety disorders as there are fish in the sea. Your specific diagnosis will depend upon the exact features that manifest in your daily life. For instance, chronic generalized anxiety describes a condition whereby an individual suffers from daily and unrelenting anxiety that is not specific to a particular person, event or stimulus. The treatment course for a person with a general anxiety disorder will be different from the treatment course than a person with a, for instance, social anxiety disorder will be tasked to follow.
The primary characteristic of a generalized anxiety disorder is the fear of a future disaster that the person is unable to prevent. This general fear permeates the person's day to day life causing stress and resulting in specific symptoms. These symptoms include disturbed sleep, loss of appetite, trouble concentrating and thinking, and nausea and vomiting.
Returning to our original thesis, a person who is simply "nervous" will not demonstrate these symptoms and will be generally higher functioning in regard to their anxieties. A key difference is that a person with a nervous disposition will not respond to treatment while a person suffering from a generalized anxiety disorder can and will improve if they follow a prescribed course.
The prognosis for people suffering from generalized anxiety is actually pretty good. The course of treatment usually includes a mood-stabilizing medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and one-on-one medical supervision by a psychiatrist.
The good news is that anxiety is not a permanently disabling condition and with treatment the symptoms do improve.
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