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The pressure was building even though I kept trying to convince myself it wasn’t there. I had mechanisms in place to keep things under control. I ran, spent quality time with family, associated with friends, laughed, cried, meditated, and gave attention to my spiritual life. All of the things you’re supposed to do, right? Yet several weeks ago, I found myself in my doctor’s office sobbing about my feelings of anxiety and depression.

For me, and many others, anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. In fact, at times doctors treat both with the same type of medication. When my anxiety builds, it freezes me. I find myself unable to do the things I need to do in order to attack the anxiety directly. When this happens, depression sets in as I begin to feel inadequate because I’m unable to perform. The feelings of inadequacy cause the anxiety to flare up, and… well, you get the picture. At some point in the process, my usual mechanisms of keeping myself balanced begin to give way to the overwhelming feelings of the situation. It seems like nothing I do could bring balance back into my life. Then an incident happened and everything broke down, thus, the visit to my doctor.

I wasn’t expecting to break down in the office. I actually just went in there to get some help for the anxiety. I don’t think I was willing yet to admit that depression was there for a visit as well. I certainly didn’t recognize it until he pointed it out. It was at that point a lot of things became clear for me. I realized how much both anxiety (which I knew about) and depression played together to create dark periods of my life and several struggles. It actually felt kinda good to be on to their game, but it didn’t do anything to reduce the pain of where I was at.

So I was prescribed medication for both anxiety and depression. This in and of itself made me hopeful that I was going to be able to get rid of the pain, finally start feeling myself again, and get back to doing what I needed to do. Even though I knew it was going to take at least four weeks for the medicine to have any effect, I wasn’t prepared for the process of waiting. More on that next week.

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