I think as we get sober/clean we can find that we dont have coping skills, like you mentioned Tan.
Our way of 'coping' was to drink or pop pills or whatever. I too am finding some stuff from my childhood coming up-things I never used to think about I am now thinking about.
With me this is causing an anger problem.
I also used to have panic attacks, I didnt know thats what they were but looking back I think they were a type of panic attack were I would go into myself and be panicing and also feel very weird, kind of a spaced out-trippy feeling. Then later on in life I had a kind of paranoid-anxiety breakdown with tinges of schizophrenia-that was like a 2 year long panic attack with knobs on. It was horrendous. I am not really sure how I recovered from that.
I am rambling a bit but what I am trying to say is you/we need to learn the coping skills 'normal' people have developed.
One thing that really helped my anxiety was meditation and yoga/relaxation techniques. Also trying to 'stay in the moment' helps, we only have the NOW, as it were. If I can stop my thinking spiralling around past events or future fears and be-here-now I find things arent that bad right now. Deep breathing and trying to calm the mind naturally brings about that feeling of being here in the present moment and that helps me.
I know someone who has gone to see a therapist lately about their anxiety and it sounded like the therapist was basically teaching them relaxation/breathing techniques and the whole buddhist 'present moment' thing so....