Peak
02-10-2014, 09:02 AM
Not quite sure where the best place to post this is.
I've suffered from anxiety for nearly 20 years and quite probably longer which seems to have gotten worse the older I got. The main focus of my anxiety is health but I have been diagnosed with GAD. I've had CBT which helped a lot and I've also been through counseling which also helped to a certain degree. Most times now I'm able to keep my anxiety under control. However there is one thing that I still don't have control over and that is low mood. Now firstly I would say that I deliberately am not using the word depression. To me real depression is the when you can't even drag yourself out of bed, when you can take no joy from anything. Whilst I can sometimes sink so low that I don't really enjoy things I normally would I can always still function and at least give the appearance of being 'normal' and usually these episodes only last for 3-4 days.
The only thing I would mention here because I don't know how much relevance this has but every member of my family with the exception of my mother (my father and 2 sisters) has suffered from mental health issues namely anxiety and depression/low mood with all three of them having also attempted suicide at least once each. My sister has also been diagnosed with being bipolar. I don't know if anxiety/depression is or can be hereditary or if this simply indicates that they were all exposed to similar external factors making them feel this way.
I personally have suffered from bouts of low mood since I was very young in fact I don't remember ever not feeling like this and I also think that anxiety was never far away either. I can find, like my sister, that I can be feeling great one day and then the next feel very low. 99% of the time I can find that a slight knockback or setback can send me crashing from a high into a low but I'm also aware that when feeling low I'm worrying about the thing that made me low so is that anxiety or is that low mood or is it both?
Obviously being anxious about something isn't pleasurable and so I can understand that if you feel anxious you could then feel down because of it. Equally whatever made you feel down can't have been a good thing and so it's natural for someone with anxiety to then worry about that thing. I guess what I'm wondering is if you cured your low mood would you cure your anxiety or if you cured your anxiety would you cure your low mood or are they two entirely separate things, two conditions that both 'need treatment'?
As an example, on Saturday I was feeling very good, there were a few stresses but nothing major and in fact I could see a potential huge positive on the horizon and so was feeling more positive than I had for some time. Then on Sunday due to a mixture of frustration of something not going particularly well and concern over a potential conflict that could start at any time I found I dropped very, very low and couldn't take any enjoyment from anything. Then today I received an e-mail about this potential conflict which alleviated many of my concerns, although the problem hasn't gone away it's just less serious than I feared, and I'm instantly feeling a bit better again.
I've suffered from anxiety for nearly 20 years and quite probably longer which seems to have gotten worse the older I got. The main focus of my anxiety is health but I have been diagnosed with GAD. I've had CBT which helped a lot and I've also been through counseling which also helped to a certain degree. Most times now I'm able to keep my anxiety under control. However there is one thing that I still don't have control over and that is low mood. Now firstly I would say that I deliberately am not using the word depression. To me real depression is the when you can't even drag yourself out of bed, when you can take no joy from anything. Whilst I can sometimes sink so low that I don't really enjoy things I normally would I can always still function and at least give the appearance of being 'normal' and usually these episodes only last for 3-4 days.
The only thing I would mention here because I don't know how much relevance this has but every member of my family with the exception of my mother (my father and 2 sisters) has suffered from mental health issues namely anxiety and depression/low mood with all three of them having also attempted suicide at least once each. My sister has also been diagnosed with being bipolar. I don't know if anxiety/depression is or can be hereditary or if this simply indicates that they were all exposed to similar external factors making them feel this way.
I personally have suffered from bouts of low mood since I was very young in fact I don't remember ever not feeling like this and I also think that anxiety was never far away either. I can find, like my sister, that I can be feeling great one day and then the next feel very low. 99% of the time I can find that a slight knockback or setback can send me crashing from a high into a low but I'm also aware that when feeling low I'm worrying about the thing that made me low so is that anxiety or is that low mood or is it both?
Obviously being anxious about something isn't pleasurable and so I can understand that if you feel anxious you could then feel down because of it. Equally whatever made you feel down can't have been a good thing and so it's natural for someone with anxiety to then worry about that thing. I guess what I'm wondering is if you cured your low mood would you cure your anxiety or if you cured your anxiety would you cure your low mood or are they two entirely separate things, two conditions that both 'need treatment'?
As an example, on Saturday I was feeling very good, there were a few stresses but nothing major and in fact I could see a potential huge positive on the horizon and so was feeling more positive than I had for some time. Then on Sunday due to a mixture of frustration of something not going particularly well and concern over a potential conflict that could start at any time I found I dropped very, very low and couldn't take any enjoyment from anything. Then today I received an e-mail about this potential conflict which alleviated many of my concerns, although the problem hasn't gone away it's just less serious than I feared, and I'm instantly feeling a bit better again.