Anxiety/depression loop

@earthspirit

Hi there, I'm so sorry you’ve been feeling like this for a while. It’s definitely not a good feeling.. Please know that you will get better, maybe it doesn’t feel like it now but the storm will pass and you’ll end up seeing a rainbow that’ll shine down. I’ve been through rough patches myself and people have told me that things will get better, I never used to believe them as I was feeling numb for a while, but I held on to that hope and the support that I got from friends and other people and I got through it, i’m sure you will get through it without any doubt! Please also know that you have support whenever and wherever you need it. You’ve got this, hang on and things are bound to turn around for you soon!

Hello, I'm sorry to hear of the rough times. I've struggled with anxiety on and off for many years. Some years better than others. I took to a lot of self reflection and study recently to see if I could resolve my own anxieties issues. Here are some things that really helped me out. This is long but I hope it is helpful. Consider emotions. What are they? Why do animals have them? What good do they do? Well... they are kind of like "pre-sets" for us. They are kind of like "modes". They are like predefined programs that our bodies can turn on. They each affect our mental alertness and acuity. They affect our physical defensiveness/aggressiveness or how empathetic it friendly we feel. They affect how social we feel. Etc. They tune a great many things about us. Why? And why are they so organized? Everyone on Earth seems to have the same set of core emotions. Well, one way to reason about it is that these modes are simply automatic optimizations that our bodies make in order to best succeed, to best survive or thrive, in our immediate situations. That seems to make a lot of sense. So assuming that's kind of what emotions sort of are... What's with feeling the anxiety? Well, what is anxiety? It tends to make us alert, makes us vigilant, focuses our attention on potential threats. Okay. Well, take a step back. That's pretty cool. It's like a built in security system mode. Seems very useful. So I thought about myself, considered what was I anxious and upset about. Well it was my emotions themselves I was upset about. They weren't doing what I wanted. Ah ha! Look at that. I noticed that I had a goal that was very important to me, I wanted my emotional state to be a curtain way - and it wasn't. So what was my body doing as a result? It was turning on my anxiety to try and help me with my goal. It was turning on a problem-solving mode (anxiety) to try and help me avoid the emotional state I didn't want to be in (anxiety). Once I saw it I laughed. Nothing was broken about me after all, I just had developed a poor relationship with my own emotions. Once I realized what the problem was the solution was pretty easy. I needed to look at anxiety as a healthy, beneficial asset. Look at all of your emotions that way. Your emotions react in direct response to you current perceptions. If you are very preoccupied by introspection, spending a lot of time considering how you feel and wanting to feel different, those are perceptions too and your body will turn on emotions appropriate to what you are perceiveing n relation to the goals you currently have. If you focus on things you genuinely consider negative, after a short while you will feel upset - if you focus on things you genuinely consider neutral, you'll feel calm, if you focus on genuinely positive things for you, you will feel happy, after a short while. Seriously the next time you feel yourself in a rut you can try this - focus on a positive idea, like the idea of getting what you want or of feeling happy. Then notice that you feel a tiny bit better than you did. That's proof. That proof should make you happy because it means you can switch emotions. Focus on that happiness. You'll feel better still, and better and better until you feel fine and relieved. It's a virtuous cycle out of anxiety. Okay I know this has been a very long post but I really hope that it can help you see the negative emotions in a positive light. It'll get better. Hope you feel better soon. Wishing you happiness.