Hi everyone. Lately I have been thinking very hard on how to put my anxiety and depression behind me. There are symptoms that I have been experiencing over the years and I always wonder if anyone has experienced them like this. Over the years I have read many things online, but many topics are, to put it simply, cookie-cutter templates that I often don't identify with. Actually, I am not even sure exactly what kind of mental disorder I am suffering from, but I do know that generally it falls into both the anxiety and depression category. Based on some things I have read online, it seems I may have Generalized Anxiety Disorder (among others) but, again, with the cookie-cutter ideas, it's difficult to pin-point. Let me briefly give you a background about myself, so that you can more easily relate this to your own life experience. After this, I will list some of the symptoms I am referring to above. If you are not interested in this background info, skip the next paragraph to the list of symptoms below.
BACKGROUND INFO (skip to symptoms below if not interested)
So, I am a 29-year old male. When I was a child, around the age of perhaps 11, I began to pick the skin on my hands (totally separate topic, you can google dermatillomania). At that time I didn't know what it was, despite my parent's aim to help me by taking me to doctors to treat what they called an eczema. I always knew that's not what it was, because it wasn't a skin problem, it was a behaviour problem. Looking back on it, now that I am older I know that all that skin picking must have been related to anxiety, maybe even depression, as a child. I don't know what set it off during my childhood. Probably a combination of personality, upbringing, school environment etc. Fast forward many years ahead, and my anxiety/depression started getting worse towards the end of high school. During my university years, I experienced the worst period of anxiety/depression, which lasted a good 7 years. I felt I didn't identify with society, was reclusive, had low self-esteem, low self-confidence. I tried to get help on two separate occasions. Once in a research program where a university group was testing a new anti-depressant on patients (totally voluntary), but as a patient you didn't know if you were to get the real thing, or a placebo pill. In the end I decided that wasn't for me, as I didn't want to be a guinea pig for their experiments, and deal with potential side effects. The second time was in a group counselling at the university. I went to the first meeting, and didn't go back, as it simply wasn't for me and I didn't fit in at all. Towards the end of university I met a woman who I entered a relationship with. This lasted until several months ago, which is when the relationship ended. Long story short it has been a depression experience. During my relationship with her, I thought that I had really put my anxiety/depression behind me for the most part, and felt quite happy. In hindsight, perhaps this wasn't always the case, and I think it still lingered around, consciously and subconsciously. That bring you up to speed to the current day, where I am trying to put anxiety/depression behind me, and just get on with life once and for all. Here are some symptoms I have experienced and experience on a regular basis, and which I wonder how many of you have gone though, and in what similar ways.
SYMPTOMS EXPERIENCED:
- this is a weird one for me, that I haven't really been able to relate to things I see online. I have an obsessive desire to learn about as many topics as possible. If I don't, I fear that I am missing out and that I am doing something wrong in life. For example, I have a constant, compulsive need to always check current events (news) and be informed. I do that often when I am working on the computer, and if work gets overwhelming, I go to news sites to escape that feeling. Another example: I enjoy going to libraries and getting lost between book shelves. When I do that, I look at some many books, and I am always so interested in so many topics, that I getting an overwhelming feeling of anxiety, my heard feels like it contracts, I get sweaty, nervous, I feel like I can't think straight. Basically I want to learn and become an "expert" on so many things, but the experience is so overwhelming, and often I cannot control the feelings that come to me. Has anyone experienced this?
- When I see people who dress well, or are attractive, or seem very confident with themselves and their lives, I get so self-conscious, so insecure, and again, my heart races, I get nervous, I can't concentrate, I worry about what they may think of me. I don't think that I am jealous of them (no, really), but more that I feel like I want to be like that too, and feel so overwhelmed, and like I can't achieve it.
- I always worry about what people think of me. Always. Walking in public places, I am always self-conscious about what I do, or say. I have this fear that people see me as less valuable.
- this is a big one for me (I didn't list them in any particular order): I worry excessively, and have difficulty making decisions. I worry if I am making the right choices in life, whether career wise, relationship wise etc. I bought a car last summer. Even that experience made me anxious, and made me nervous, because I feared I was making the wrong choice.
- I always feel tired, fatigued, even after getting lots of sleep, and usually my sleep is not very restful. I have trouble falling asleep, I can't keep thoughts from racing through my head.
- I experience guilt and regret about past experiences, and can't get it out of my head. Sometimes I have said or done stupid things and honestly, I didn't mean them like that, but somehow they came out wrong. I always stand up for my mistakes, and I never try to find lame excuses. But sometime I wonder if my anxiety and depression cause me to be easily irritable, not with people directly, but with myself. That in turn translates into me saying the wrong things sometimes, even though I don't mean them. For example, one time my partner cursed in public, at a somewhat semi-formal event, and I said something along the lines of "you shouldn't do that". Even though I didn't meant o say it like that, it came out wrong and was a stupid thing to say. I still regret it to this day. Things like this pop up in my mind so often, and they hinder my life and progress at work, etc.
- I worry about spending money on certain things, even if it may not seem that expensive. For instance, I would always about what if I get a better deal elsewhere? What if I don't need this? What if I am being ripped off? Am I making a sound financial decision? As you can see, I just worry a lot.
- sometimes I feel like I am living in someone else's body (if that is even the right way to explain). I have had moments when I hallucinated, and thought that the life I am living is so different from that of other people in the world, and that i really have no idea what I am doing.
- I procrastinate a lot. I have difficulty making decisions, much more so than the average person. I have extreme difficulty concentrating and paying attention.
- If I can avoid public places, or meeting people, I often will, because it makes me nervous, and I fear what people will think of me, or that I don't have enough confidence and self-esteem.
- I still, to this day, pick my skin a lot. It's involuntary, oftentimes I can't help it. I know that this has been associated with OCD, but personally, I am not sure I buy it.
- often I become easily irritable with people, even those in my close life: my (now ex) partner, my family. I should mention I still live at home, and planning to move out, but making decisions is difficult as I always worry about what I am doing, as I have explained above. I always want to help other people, and I think I have not taken care of myself too well, and I over time I have begun to worry about what others think of me, and therefore become easily irritable.
That's all for now! So many more things that I want to say, but I think these summarise what my symptoms are. If anyone has experienced something similar, and wants to add their thoughts and feelings on this, I would love to hear your opinions. Anything like this sound like a particular anxiety and/or depression disorder, that maybe you have been diagnosed with?
Thanks for reading!