My mum is a very anxious person (as am I, only slightly less so) and I sometimes think she's happiest when there IS a crisis. It's as if the situation she's been preparing herself for in the most stable circumstances is here and now she's attuned to it.
In a book I read recently about personality psychology, the author opined that neurotics are suited to situations in which anxiety is helpful. In situations in which anxiety has no immediate, obvious applications, the anxiety is still there, useless, self-generating.
This is a sidenote.