So I figured I would finally sit down and write about my anxiety and depression. That’s basically the reason I haven’t posted anything for a few days, so why not use it to get me started again?
I’ve only been aware of it for a few years, but I’ve always had anxiety. Even when I was little, I would get bad stomach aches before softball games or anything else that made me nervous. It got worse in high school. I felt sick every morning. If I had a class where I couldn’t leave, that was horrible. I felt trapped, and it always ended up with me having a stomach ache or feeling nauseated. I never thought much about it, I just thought I had a weird stomach issue. I took Pepto Bismol pills almost daily, and I swear, I’ll never take one again. It got better after my freshman year, but I never really knew when to expect it.
It still affects me similarly. If I’m in a situation that makes me uncomfortable, I feel sick. Taking long car trips makes me sick, especially if I’m not driving. I don’t like going places with people I’m not comfortable with. I don’t like not having access to a bathroom.
I eventually got a hang of things, and knew how to make it easier, and what situations to avoid. After high school, I signed up for classes at our community college, things were good, I felt ‘normal’ again. Then one day, I was reading an article in my sociology book about young people getting married and having babies, and all of a sudden I felt like crying, I thought I was having a heart attack, all kinds of fun things. I left class, and it turns out that I had a panic attack.
Anyway, after going to the doctor, a lot of talking about it, a lot of crying, now I’m on medicine that is anti-anxiety and also an anti-depressant.
Looking back, it really shows me how so many problems I had were actually symptoms of my anxiety and depression. In the past year, it has gotten worse, and the depression part has really come out.
There’s a lot more to it, but it’s hard for me to let it all out at once. I just had to talk about this because it has been affecting me so much lately. Like, I spend hours convincing myself that Steve doesn’t love me, or that I’ll never make it in the hair industry.
Every time I go to the doctor, he has to re-convince me that it isn’t my fault. I know that it is a chemical imbalance, but I still feel like this is something that I need to control. And sometimes it’s easy. Lately, I can’t handle it though.
Anyway, I decided to include some bits and pieces from WebMD, so here ya go. First off, are some symptoms, which I have all of them. I think a lot of people don’t connect the physical symptoms to depression, myself included. I guess I'm including it because things like this help me understand myself more. So maybe if there are people out there that need a little reassurance, I hope I can help.
I took my info from here
• Headaches.
• Back pain.
• Muscle aches and joint pain.
• Chest pain.
• Digestive problems.
• Exhaustion and fatigue.
• Sleeping problems.
• Change in appetite or weight.
• Dizziness or lightheadedness.
• Feeling sad, empty, hopeless, or numb.
• Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy.
• Irritability or anxiety.
• Trouble making decisions.
• Feeling guilty or worthless.
Depression and anxiety might seem like opposites. We think: Depression saps you of energy; anxiety makes you keyed up and afraid. Depression makes it near impossible to get out of bed; anxiety leaves you sleepless, pacing all night.
But the truth is not so simple. In fact, depression and anxiety often go together. Mental health experts estimate that more than half of the people diagnosed with depression also have anxiety. “We know that many of the symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders overlap,” says Ian A. Cook, MD, the director of the Depression Research Program at UCLA. “And we’re learning from studies that there also appears to be a lot of overlap in the underlying brain mechanisms involved in these two conditions.”
Unfortunately, the combination of depression and anxiety can be particularly severe, and many people don’t get the correct diagnosis. The good news is that doctors have good treatments for tackling both conditions.
“
When you’re in the grip of depression and anxiety, it can feel like the misery will never end, that you’ll never recover,” says Dean F. MacKinnon, MD, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “But people do recover. You just need to find the right treatment.”
Understanding Depression and Anxiety
Although either depression or anxiety can be a disabling condition on its own, the combination can be particularly hard. “If you’re already depressed, anxiety is a multiplier of suffering,” MacKinnon says.
Depression can make feel people profoundly
discouraged, helpless, and hopeless. Anxiety can make them agitated and besieged by physical symptoms --
a pounding heart, tightness in the chest, and difficulty breathing.
“People who have both depression and anxiety
feel low, down in the dumps, and unmotivated,” says Jerilyn Ross, MA, LICSW, president and CEO of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. “
But their minds are also racing, they can’t concentrate, they can’t sit still. It’s a very tough combination.”
It’s also tough to control. “It’s important for people to recognize that when they have both depression and anxiety, it may be more difficult for them to get all the way well,” Cook tells WebMD. That’s not to say they won’t recover fully, but that it may take more work, he says.
People diagnosed with both depression and anxiety tend to have
• More severe symptoms
• More functional impairment
• More trouble finding the right treatment
• A higher risk of suicide
Some people who are depressed have a distinct anxiety disorder, like panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Ross says. Many others don’t have full-fledged anxiety disorders, but more general anxiety symptoms that accompany their depression.
The fact that depression and anxiety so often co-occur has led some researchers to speculate -- controversially -- that they may not always be different conditions. “It’s possible that in time, we’ll come to see anxiety and depression together as representing a distinct illness separate from either condition by itself,” Cook says.
.jpg)
.jpg)
