Can't tell if I'm getting better or worse?

[SOBAY310]

Hi all,

It seems like I poke back here every couple of months with a new problem/situation. I really owe all my successes to this forum.

Well, here we are on my 1 year anniversary of dealing with anxiety and I can't tell if things are better or worse. Here is what I'm feeling:

-I know I won't have a panic attack, but I can't get the "what if" thought out of my head. It's annoying because it's just something stuck in my head. It's like having a song stuck in your head, you just can't get rid of it. It's really frustrating because I don't wake up in the morning thinking of what I have to do today, I wake up and the first thing that pops in my head is the actual word, "Anxiety". It gets to the point where I can't focus on my job, school work or family because the thought of "Anxiety" is taking up all of my emotional energy.

-Here is the other major thing I have started to deal with more and more recently is the feeling of depression. So many great things are happening in my life right now. I've been married for 3 years, we have a 2 year old daugther, we just bought a house in our favorite neighborhood, and I just got my ideal job working in Video Production. Yet, there are these whirling thoughts circling in my head saying, "You can't be happy, you have anxiety" or some other stupid stuff. It's like I'm struggling to be happy and I don't get it because things are going so well. What provoked me to write this was what happened to me yesterday. I was sitting on the couch watching my wife and daugther play and I didn't feel any emotion at all, then my anxiety started to flow in because I wasn't feeling anything and that scared me, and then I start to think what kind of a life is a life without feeling blessed and happy like I should be?

I think I'm somebody who has a hard time getting a thought out of my head once it's implanted. I'm always doing the what if's. Right now it's, "What if I'm depressed", "what if my brain is fatiguing", "what if things get worse, I'm only 26 now, how can I envision a healthy mind when I'm 40?".

So what do you think? Has my anxiety been replaced with depression? Do I have both? Even as I write this the words "anxiety" and "depression" keep flickering in my head. This stinks. Can you relate?

You guys are great. :hugs:

[sarah1984]

Hi there,

Anxiety and depression very often go hand in hand-it's unlikely you would experience one without the other. I think you need to test your "What ifs"-if you did have a panic attack, are you able to cope and if not, could you learn some breathing/relaxation techniques that would enable you to cope? Write down a list, then a list of coping techniques that prove that it would not be that bad if your fears did come true and then provide a more "balanced" thought-what is most likely to happen? Two very good books for helping you retrain negative thinking patterns are David Burn's "Feeling Good" and Robert Leahy's "The Worry Cure". They can help you learn to cope with your demons-try to talk back to that voice and assert your right to happiness, like everyone else. It's not easy but perserverance will pay off. Have you asked to be referred to CBT? It's a really useful way of learning to deal with and reorganise your thought processes.

[cece]

I second sarah's cbt advice and think her entire note was great! The two cbt books I liked best were Been There, Done That? Do This! by Sam Obitz and Feeling Good by David Burns. They will teach you how to face your fears and conquer them.

[cece]

Did you give cbt a try yet? How are you doing now?