Question:
I had 2 depressions in the past and after 3 years of therapy I still do
not know if they where more related to anxiety. Also, whenever anxiety
attacks are back I always think : "the depression is back !" Do any of you have the same difficulty of distinguishing one from the
other ?
Answer:
I'm just now beginning to understand what they are...but far from
understanding the two..I believe that depression & anxiety go hand in hand. I always become more
anxious when my depression is bad. When a bad episode passes I still retain
echoes of anxiety. I have chalked it down on my list of symptoms. I also
find that the more isolated I get the more the anxiety feeds into the
isolation. Depression is like a snake swallowing its tail, its hard to know
where one thing begins and another ends. I have noticed that also. I had 2 depressions and 5 sequences of
anxiety attacks and they all have "isolation" in common. I think anxiety/panic attacks *can* be linked to
depression, however I would tend to believe they are more a sort of discharge
especially if one has tried to ignore/push back depression. I think anxiety
attacks are like a major red alarm of the subconscious telling
you "Helloooooo, anybody home, I got news for you, you
can't ignore your depression". However, I don't think
that the *origin* of anxiety attacks is always depression,
they might appear also if one has experienced a major shock like in a car
accident and *refused* to deal with it emotionally. ("I am fine, nothing
happened to me, I have to *control* myself and get myself
together, so I can do what my surroundings expect me to do
and *function"). The best way to deal with anxiety attacks is to trick them,
you know when
they are coming, that feeling creeping in when you, out of
the blue, think that either you are going mad or about to suffer a massive
brainstroke [lol], since this is what sets off the panic you need to
intervene here. When one is about to come, instead of letting panic happen,
you need to rather think "Oh, you again". Trust me I tried this and
since then I feel them coming when I am under pressure (and boy do I have
pressure;-) and by handling them this way it's like cutting the fuel hose on
the formula 1 race car.
