Peeling Back The Layers- Major Depression/Anxiety

[Ebb_and_Flow]

Currently in week 5 after having a relapse of severe major depression/anxiety. On new medication and it has seemed to have taken the edge off a bit and am getting councelling. Basically living like a hermit and every time I try to get my life on track things go sour and the depression/anxiety amplify. My family don't understand what I'm going through and generally think I just don't want to work because over the years I can't keep a job and leave not long after starting it but the truth is my depression and anxiety gets so heavy that I fimd it hard to function. I deserately want to have a job and earn money to support myself and have a better quality of life. I just feel like I'm stuck in a loop.

Ahhhh letting that out helped somewhat.

I joined this forum to have some sort of a release by writing.

[geoff]

hi Ebb and Flow, it is always a great relief when something that has been bottled up in you has finally been told to someone, so congratulations and well done.
The pressure you must constantly have on you by your family is certainly no way to help you, because they don't understand how you are feeling and what is going on for you.
It's never easy when you need to work to pay all the bills but you physically and mentally can't do because of your depression and anxiety, and it maybe difficult to know which one starts first or perhaps they are linked together and that is hard to tell, but at the moment let's take them as being joined together, when one begins so does the other.
Once you are stuck in this it makes it so difficult for you to move forward, because your thinking starts at the end rather than at the beginning, in other words you anticipate what the outcome is going to be and not about being pleased at getting this new position.
There is much more to your story so please come back and let us know. Geoff.

[Ebb_and_Flow]

Hi Geoff, yes it is and thanks. Yes you're exactly right. I know my family loves me and we have respect for eachother but for them to understand exactly what it's like having depression/anxiety is hard unless you go through it I feel.

Regarding work, it is... One minute you can feel in control and then the next your whole world is out of control. You're right it feels like the depression and anxiety are linked together and with you're description of about being stuck in it, spot on.

My story without too much detail- 2010-11 I started acknowledging that I wasn't so much the happy bubbly person that I used to be, started going out less and less, wanting to sleep alot (due to feeling sad and having no energy) and was avoiding everything pretty much. One night while in bed I decided to google my signs and symptoms and to my suprise major depression and anxiety described what I'd been going through for a long while so I made an appointment to go see my doctor and was evaluated then diagnosed woth major depression and anxiety.

It was explained to me that due to a chemical imbalance in the brain/life can be the cause and through taking medication, exercise, diet changes and councelling it can be managed. The first medication I tried didn't agree with me so my doctor put me on another one and that one seemed to agree with me and lifted the heaviness of it all to a degree. Exercise and diet is something I need to address but my anxiety gets in the way of exercising and I'm a comfort over eater.

[Ebb_and_Flow]

My doctor took me off the medication a couple of months ago to see if the skin condition I was experiencing was a side effect of the medication. My skin did clear up a lot but after 2 months of being taken off the medication and starting a new job after being unemployed for some time I have a relapse at work and left the job a month ago. I am now on a new medication and that has agreed with me after the initial adjustment on it thankfully and has helped lift that feeling of heaviness to an extent. Third appointment next week with the psychologist. I now want to start looking for work again but yes my think keeps starting at the end anticipating what might happen not being able to control the blow of bad depression and anxiety when it hits due to whatever triggers it to become amplified. I need to just start the job searching and go from there and let it take it's course. I do believe I will be suitable in some roll but what I don't know. I love animals and nature so that's an outlet for me which is good.

What's your story Geoff? Thanks for your reply.

[Ebb_and_Flow]

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