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What It’s Like Having Depression And Anxiety

Its Easy To Overlook The Clues That You May Need Help For One Of These Common Conditions

What Having Anxiety Feels Like

The signs of mental illness arent always obvious. Subtle changes in mood or behavior are often attributed to aging, just like weaker muscles and fuzzy thinking. Theres a tendency to dismiss it as, Well, of course Im worried, I have heart disease, or, Of course Im sad, Im not as relevant as I once was,’ says Dr. Michael Craig Miller, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

But depression and anxiety do not need to be routine parts of aging. Getting help for these feelings can help you maintain your health and enjoy life to the fullest.

Can Anxiety And Depression Be Treated Together

Yes. No one has to suffer from anxiety disorder or depression, and certainly not both. People with anxiety disorder should speak with a psychiatrist, therapist, or other healthcare professional about their symptoms and start treatment as soon as possible. If you suspect you have both anxiety and depression, Connolly recommends getting a thorough evaluation from a psychiatrist as a first step. Its really crucial for people with both to have a good assessment to rule out bipolar disorder, she says.

Important: If you or someone you know needs help coping with anxiety or depression, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK . The Crisis Text Line also provides free, 24/7, confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they text to 741741.

Tips For Friends And Family

If you have a friend or loved one dealing with depression, you might be wondering if there are things you should look or listen for. The good news, according to Kevin Gilliland, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist and executive director of Innovation360, is you dont need to have a great understanding of what depression feels like to you, just try to be curious about what depression feels like for them.

His advice? Try to understand it enough so that you stay aware of the symptoms and look for the little things that indicate your loved one is doing well or that they are struggling.

Whats most important is that we are trying to care for them and when we are aware of their struggle, we can check on them and ask what we can do to help, Gilliland says.

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What Are The Different Types Of Depression

You might have heard a number of terms used to describe depression. In this section, we explain what some of these terms mean.

What is clinical depression?

Clinical depression is a common term, but it is not a formal diagnosis. People sometimes say clinical diagnosis to just mean they have been diagnosed by a doctor.

What is a depressive episode?

Your doctor might say that you are going through a depressive episode. This is the formal name that doctors give depression when they make a diagnosis. They may say that you are going through a mild, moderate or severe episode.

What is recurrent depressive disorder?

If you have had repeated episodes of depression, your doctor might say that you have recurrent depressive disorder. They may say that your current episode is mild, moderate or severe.

What is reactive depression?

If your doctor thinks that your episode of depression was caused by particular stressful events in your life, they may say that it is reactive. For example, divorce, job or money worries. This is sometimes separated from an adjustment disorder, where you may struggle with some symptoms of depression because of adapting to a major change in your life. Such as separation from people, retirement or migrating to a new area.

What is a severe depressive episode with psychotic symptoms?

You can find more information about Psychosis by clicking here.

What is dysthymia?

Also Check: How To Help A Teenager With Anxiety And Depression

What Depression May Feel Like

But You Don

Many people believe that depression needs to be debilitating and cause significant problems in their life in order to seek help. What they dont realize is that some of the more subtle signs of this disorder are often the first indication that something is going on. Here are some examples of how depression may feel to you.

Information presented in this article may be triggering to some people. If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database.

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Emerging Trends In Substance Misuse:

  • MethamphetamineIn 2019, NSDUH data show that approximately 2 million people used methamphetamine in the past year. Approximately 1 million people had a methamphetamine use disorder, which was higher than the percentage in 2016, but similar to the percentages in 2015 and 2018. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that overdose death rates involving methamphetamine have quadrupled from 2011 to 2017. Frequent meth use is associated with mood disturbances, hallucinations, and paranoia.
  • CocaineIn 2019, NSDUH data show an estimated 5.5 million people aged 12 or older were past users of cocaine, including about 778,000 users of crack. The CDC reports that overdose deaths involving have increased by one-third from 2016 to 2017. In the short term, cocaine use can result in increased blood pressure, restlessness, and irritability. In the long term, severe medical complications of cocaine use include heart attacks, seizures, and abdominal pain.
  • KratomIn 2019, NSDUH data show that about 825,000 people had used Kratom in the past month. Kratom is a tropical plant that grows naturally in Southeast Asia with leaves that can have psychotropic effects by affecting opioid brain receptors. It is currently unregulated and has risk of abuse and dependence. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that health effects of Kratom can include nausea, itching, seizures, and hallucinations.

Resources:

What Does Depression Feel Like

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

Sadness is something we all experience from time to time. For some, this feeling is temporary and goes away on its own. But for others, this persistent feeling of emptiness, unhappiness, and hopelessness becomes a regular part of their day.

If your mood has changed over the last few weeks and engaging in routine daily tasks is getting more difficult, you may have depression, and you’re not alone.

Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders in the United States. According to data from 2017, it is estimated that 17.3 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States had a least one major depressive episode in the past year.

Depression, a mood disorder that can cause mild to severe symptoms, can affect how you feel, think, and manage daily activities.

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Vagus Nerve: Anatomy And Physiology

The so-called wandering nerve , the vagus nerve plays a role in many of the

vital functions of your body. The vagus nerve is a part of the parasympathetic nervous system , also known as the rest and digest system. It is active when your body is not in fight or flight mode, which is instead mediated by the sympathetic nervous system . As a part of the PNS, the vagus nerves role is to send and receive signals that are important for slowing heart rate and breathing, beginning digestion, along with many more functions.

During fight or flight mode, the SNS increases heart rate and breathing, while inhibiting digestion and other processes, all in an effort to make sure you and your muscles get as much oxygen as possible. The body prepares to exert itself. In rest and digest mode, the PNSin large part through the vagus nerveinnervates these same regions, just with the opposite effect. The body relaxes. This is all in an effort of self-preservation, and your body does this all unconsciously .

After hearing all of this, you may be beginning to see the potential of the vagus nerve as a target for therapy of various disorders: indeed, there is a therapy using direct electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve to influence the brain, and this has been proven to treat epilepsy. This therapy, called vagus nerve stimulation , has also been highly efficacious in the treatment of disorders like depression and anxiety.

You Often Feel Stuck In Vicious Loop

What is Anxious Depression?

For me, anxiety isnt just worrying about everything that could go wrong its an obsession with all of the things that need to go right. However, having depression at the same time means Im often stuck. Im painfully aware of all of the things that could go wrong, desperate to make everything go right, and yet utterly helpless at making anything happen at all. Its a vicious, self-feeding cycle and sometimes its hard to tell which came first the anxiety or the depression. Nicole Starbuck, 29, an entrepreneur in Denver

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How Are Stress Anxiety And Depression Connected

Anxiety and depression can be caused by several things, including:

  • Sleep disturbances, like difficulty falling or staying asleep
  • Distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning

Advanced signs of a major depressive disorder include:

  • Feeling down or depressed most of the day, nearly every day
  • Diminished interest in activities you once enjoyed
  • Significant changes in your weight
  • Difficulty with sleep, like difficulty falling, staying asleep or sleeping too much
  • Fatigue or frequently feeling tired
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning

How To Help Someone You Love

If you notice that someone you love might be struggling with anxiety and depression, don’t try to solve their problems. Instead, just listen.

“You can feel helpless, like you’re watching from a window,” McKernan says of trying to help a loved one. “Our urge is to jump in and to try really hard … to fix it, to try and put a positive spin on whatever’s going on, to help the person feel better.”

What is more helpful, Marques says, is just to be present. Sit with them, ask open-ended questions, and listen. Invite them to do something with you that could also be good for them, like taking a 10 minute walk. Ask if they’d like help finding a therapist, or offer to go with them.

“When we say to somebody who’s really struggling, ‘What can I do?’ That’s often met with silence,” McKernan says. “If someone’s really anxious or depressed, they might be overwhelmed by the idea of change, or not have any idea how to help themselves.”

You can also offer to share resources, such as:

  • You or they can text STRENGTH to Crisis Text Line at 741741 to be connected with a counselor.

Recommended Reading: How To Handle Anxiety Attacks

Across The World People Need Mental Health Support Now More Than Ever Global And Community

Deutsche Welle

October 10 is World Mental Health Day, a World Health Organization event to “raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilize efforts in support of mental health.”

Mental health advocates, including the WHO, have been pushing hard to reform mental health care for decades. This year, they stress that a perfect storm of events from the coronavirus pandemic to economic downturns has a major impact on mental health around the world.

According to the WHO World Mental Health report published in June, depression and anxiety rose by 25% in the first year of the pandemic, bringing the number of people living with a mental disorder to nearly one billion people.

Whats more, mental health services have been severely disrupted in recent years and the treatment gap for mental health conditions has widened, a WHO spokesperson told DW.

Special initiative for mental health

So what’s being done about it? In 2020, the WHO established the Special Initiative for Mental Health. It is the WHOs most ambitious mental health programmes so far, aiming to increase access to mental health services for 100 million people across 12 nations, including Ukraine, Jordan, and Zimbabwe.

Many countries have very outdated mental health service mandates. We’re working with countries to change their approaches so more people have access to support, Alison Schafer, technical advisor in WHOs Department of Mental Health, told DW.

Big picture approach to mental health

It’s Easy To Overlook The Clues That You May Need Help For One Of These Common Conditions

Are Anxiety And Depression The Same Thing

The signs of mental illness aren’t always obvious. Subtle changes in mood or behavior are often attributed to aging, just like weaker muscles and fuzzy thinking. “There’s a tendency to dismiss it as, ‘Well, of course I’m worried, I have heart disease,’ or, ‘Of course I’m sad, I’m not as relevant as I once was,'” says Dr. Michael Craig Miller, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

But depression and anxiety do not need to be routine parts of aging. Getting help for these feelings can help you maintain your health and enjoy life to the fullest.

Recommended Reading: How To Help A Teenager With Anxiety

We Can Be Kind To Ourselves

Depression likes to turn us against ourselves. Who knows our weaknesses better than we do?

Those thoughts of not being good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, get brought to the surface by depression. Whats worse, we start to agree with those thoughts.

We begin to accept those thoughts as truth. If we feel that way about ourselves, of course everyone else must feel that way too, right?

As my awareness of depressions influence grew, I started to regain my ability to be kind to myself.

It often means more than positive words in the mirror. I write down my positive thoughts in a journal, and I try to practice consciously reframing negative thinking.

When depression says youre not good at anything, I remember that ability to argue back. Im good at many things. I have so many positive traits we all do!

We are not our thoughts. Studies show acceptance and commitment therapy help to defuse those negative thoughts and lies that invade our personal space.

Depression doesnt get to tell us we arent good enough. We know were unique, and were the ones in command not depression.

You Often Avoid Practicing Basic Self

Often times, I like to refer to the mix of depression and anxiety as the beast. This is the voice in our head, the feelings in our body, which tells us to do the complete opposite of the positive actions we need to be doing for ourselves and our self-care. For example, if you need to get out of bed, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed for work, get your papers together and go, the beast of anxiety and depression is telling you to do the complete opposite every step of the way.

Here is where we must do everything opposite of what the beast wants. If it means simply rolling out of bed and onto the floor or making it to the couch, at least youre not letting it control every step of the way. These small behavioral shifts actually help us in feeling better. Katie Sandler, 33, an impact coach in Fort Lauderdale

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Big Picture Approach To Mental Health

Schafer said the uniqueness of WHOs Special initiative for Mental Health is based on its big picture approach.

There is no one way to approach mental health services and support. It requires a bigger perspective than what’s been looked at before, not just focusing on singular interventions or groups, but at a whole system of mental and related health care services, which may be offer in healthcare, but also in schools, community organizations, religious groups, and businesses, she told DW.

One goal of the initiative is to focus on providing support to at-risk groups. At-risk groups include, among others, people who experience discrimination or human rights violations, including people who identity as LGBTQ.

We’re already seeing early successes, for example helping people understand that that sexual attraction between people of the same sex is not a mental disorder, but rather they might be at higher risk of mental health conditions because of social stigma and discrimination and in need of support, Schafer said.

According to Schafer, the success comes from basing mental health support on scientific evidence, decades of learning and the rights of persons living with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities. But the initiative has not been without its political challenges.

People Think Depression Is Sadness People Think Depression Is Crying People Think Depression Is Dressing In Black But People Are Wrong Depression Is The Constant Feeling Of Being Numb Being Numb To Emotions Being Numb To Life You Wake Up In The Mo

What does Depression feel like?

Sadness is a common feeling in the kaleidoscope of diverse human emotions. It can be triggered by a terrible experience such as going through a romantic breakup or listening to survivors of a mass shooting talking on television. You will cry, perhaps turn down social engagements, feel darkness but in time the kaleidoscope will shift to a cheerier hue. However, for the 6.8% of adults in the United States who suffer a major depressive episode each year, it is darkness 24/7. A clinically-depressed person is often _beyond sadness_his or her feelings hidden deep beneath a throbbing wall of numbness.

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Anxiety: Causes And Effects

Like depression, anxiety may be caused by a whole host of different factors. There are also numerous types of anxiety, including:

  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Because of the broad range of anxiety disorders, there is an even broader range of anxiety symptoms. But anxiety can best be described by three issues:

  • Emotional Anxiety, of course, is a mental health disorder, and that means it affects your emotions and your thoughts. You’ll often have fears or worries, and develop a type of negative thinking .
  • Physical Anxiety often comes with physical symptoms. Some of them are common, like an increased heart rate, sweating, and nausea. Others are less common, like leg pain, shoulder pain, and trouble holding your head up. It’s also possible to experience physical symptoms of anxiety when no thoughts or emotional symptoms are present.
  • Behaviors Anxiety also has a tendency to affect behaviors. In some cases, these may be obvious like compulsions that you need to complete to reduce your anxiety. Others may be less obvious, like avoiding various situations because you’re afraid of the potential for anxiety.

Anxiety is one of the most diverse disorders in the mental health world, causing a host of different problems and comprising of numerous physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. Its broad range of symptoms is one of the reasons that anxiety may cause depression.

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