Fear gives rise to the Ego. Fear of social separation. The Ego creates a system of thoughts, decisions, actions and justifications to preserve and protect its status and acceptance within the group.
Ego is the protector, a self-defense mechanism. It operates on another layer, a different substrate than our active consciousness. It will make us do things in a social situation that we normally wouldn’t do. The anxiety is the fear of being socially rejected from the group.
As the Ego grows it snowballs, becoming a closed-loop. Making choices and actions to gain control, rewarding itself with more power, increasing to even more control and power. The Ego comes to dominate, unquestioned, unchallenged, it takes over. We think the Ego is who we are. While the fear never goes away, it only becomes more ingrained and beholden, as the Ego grows stronger so does its hold on the fear. That we become more afraid of letting go of.