30 Years of HA and Depression - My Experience

Hi all - I’m 42 years old and have a very vivid memory of my first overwhelming anxiety attack at the age of 11 years old. I don’t remember what I got for my birthday that year but I do remember standing in front of a mirror and feeling what I thought was a lump in my neck and completely disintegrating mentally into a storm of worry and fear. I don’t know how long that particular episode lasted but I know it was the first of maybe hundreds of cycles of the same process.

I just wanted to write down my experience with anxiety and depression- more to put it somewhere than having any great expectation of fixing anything. It’s very heavy and I’d like to try and put it down for a while. My terminology may not be correct and I’m certainly not offering any advice. I’d just like to see how other people deal with this as a comparison. I wonder about other peoples life experience all the time and how they all stack up.

It should be noted that I grew up around serious illness, so there is no prizes for figuring out where my constant worry about cancer and serious illness stems from. My father had cancer 4 times before it finally claimed him at the age of 47 when I was 20 years old. My mental health troubles really started when my grandmother was dying of cancer when I was 11 years old. I don’t really want to go into too much detail about the foundations for my HA - more just pointing out that it’s there.

I have experienced intense periods of depression and HA over there years with some years dotted in between with seemingly no overwhelming experiences. Just low grade social anxiety and introversion. Over the years I have also developed some fairly serious substance problems - which I have fixed and in no way recommend if you have anxiety problems. It should be noted that at this time I didn’t really know the extent of my anxiety and depression. That’s only really come into focus for me over the past 10 years or so. At the end of my prolific run with illegal drugs - I started taking anti depressants and did so for the next 12 years. I was diagnosed for the first time at this point with Generalised anxiety disorder. I’ve been off anti depressants now for about 6 months and am leaning towards starting up again as I bounce around between feeling slightly ok and back to anxiety and despair.

I’ve seen multiple therapists and the cycle always remains the same. I feel improvement for a few months and then the slide backwards starts again. I suppose I wonder the same things that all sufferers of mental health issues ponder: ‘is this it for me?’ The last time I went deep on this question I had a very serious slide into depression that caused some serious problems in my personal life. I feel bad for my wife and children when I am distant and preoccupied with my anxiety and negative thought cycles. I find it almost impossible to describe my mental states - despite having intensely felt them for decades which adds another layer. I keep coming back to the description of being a passenger in my mind that’s on a very unpleasant journey with no real way of stopping the ride. Doesn’t really do it justice though does it?!

My wife’s best friend recently passed away from a serious illness at a very young age and a guy I work closely with has just had a bad diagnosis and it’s sent me off into a major tailspin about my own health and I’m back to the HA cycle of constantly scanning my body and obsessing about symptoms that I have. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m tired. I have young children and have no time to take care of myself and I feel quite trapped. I’m never sure where I will be tomorrow mentally and I’ve started waking up 4 or 5 times in the night which isn’t helping.

Anyway - like I said - I just wanted to put this down for a while. Thanks for reading if you made it all the way though. It feels like I’ve done something at least by just writing it down!

Thanks again.
JM.

Hiya JayEm and welcome to NMP :welcome:

Why not take a look at our articles on our home page, they contain a wealth of information and
are a great starting place for your time on the forum.

I hope you find the as site helpful and informative as I have and that you get the help and
support you need here and hope that you meet a few friends along the way :yesyes:

Welcome to NMP :)!