Anyone deal with anxiety and depression on here?

I asked my shrink about that. She didn't think that would help. At least not for me anyhow.

 

I would of talked to your doctor. I knew a guy who was suicidal. Ended up being low T. All is good now. As we age the T goes down. Some can function and some can not. I’m low T. I was moody, sex drive sucked and didn’t want to do much. All is good now.

 

Some anti-depressants can play havoc with your libido.

 

I’m sorry man. Luckily I’ve haven’t been on anti-depressants.

 

Welbutrin is the gold standard for low sexual side effects, but it's not for everyone. Also, T replacement can be highly beneficial, but like many things, carries risks of its own, like higher incidence of prostate cancer and heart disease. First step is to discuss with Dr., then consider getting a test; I recommend doing this on the order of a physician, not with an OTC test kit from the pharmacy. Be wary of online Drs.

 

The past few years my anxiety and panic attacks were starting to become a bit more frequent than usual. It was starting to affect me mentally and somewhat just wasn’t there.
I exercise and try keep healthy routines but it seems that at some point it just wasn’t enough.
Low and behold my caffeine intake was causing it. I decided to quit cold turkey which was hell for the first week and started to get better each subsequent week.
I definitely sleep better and actually dream. My anxiety and panic attacks have decreased but definitely getting better. Going on 3 months of being not caffeinated and it has made a difference for me.

 

I’ve decreased my caffeine intake over time, although more so for my blood pressure and sleep. Glad to hear that helped you; caffeine is a known anxiogenic.

On the topic of everyday drugs, alcohol has acute anxiety reducing effects, but this rapidly develops tolerance, and the rebound effect can significantly worsen anxiety. To anyone who is reading this, if you’re dealing with anxiety and depression, while you may need treatment in the form of therapy or medication, health-positive steps including diet, exercise, minimal caffeine and alcohol consumption, and good sleep habits are all positive steps toward improving mental health.

 

Nothing wrong with asking for help. Dont feel ashamed or embarrased, i know for myself asking for help was one of the biggest things i had to work on and something i still struggle with. Its easy to brush your problems aside and when my wife asks me if im ok my initial reaction is to always say im fine. But it builds up and I almost always end up telling her how im feeling

Luckily for you you have a nice community here who can help you with your concerns. For me i think my whole family grew up with anxiety. The older i get and the more i think of my mother and brother i can see all the signs. For me its stress induced anxiety. I stop breathing , hold all my air in, and after a while my chest gets tight. Thats the first sign for me and ive slowly started introducing breathing excercises ( 4 second breath in, hold for 4, slow 4 out). I work in a somewhat stressful environment as a 911 dispatcher for a very busy city and ive had alot of times where im so stressed out and anxious i dont even notice until im out of work and im just exhausted.

Mental health is real, society stigmatizes it and focuses too heavily on your physical health. But thats only half. Healthy mind and healthy body as one. Hope everyone finds the help they need

 

I feel like for as long as this thread has been up it souls be longer then 4 pages. I guess people don’t like to talk about much.

 

Sorry to hear about your struggles, do you exercise or have some sort of a daily workout routine? I know this can really help a lot of people who have depression and anxiety getting your mind off what’s bothering you and a good endorphin release.

 

Unfortunately that’s not how major depressive disorder works. You can’t really explain it it’s just always there. Sometimes worse then others but it never leaves. For some of us the best you can do is to not be down but you never really feel happy and you just kinda have to leave to live with it and fight it however you can but it’s an every day struggle. It makes your entire life feel like a job that you really don’t feel like going to everyday.

 

Chiming in as another one on team mental illness.

I was diagnosed in my early teens for bipolar 2 disorder, rapid cycling, psychotic features, and anxiety disorder. It was a mess for years. Around 21-22 I was finally starting to get a hold on it. Something slipped.. Medication change after medication change after medication change. Numerous voluntary psych admissions under my belt now. There was always a chance my bipolar could very well go into remission if it was treated early enough, and it was treated early but it'll always be an issue.

I've been on and off my medication fairly frequently the past year. Like OP my medical anxiety has been so, so intense for four years that I am constantly terrified of what's plaguing me; from my heart, to my kidneys, blood clots, aneurysms and strokes. I find my bipolar is actually much better than it ever has been, even being off medication. My range of mood is definitely a taller rollercoaster than it has been while on medication, however it's more manageable than it ever was.

All that being said I do have plans to get back to my medication routine now that I've found one that works after 20+ psych medications in 14 years. I'm just trying to create a network for positive association vs being anxious about taking it every day. I was a better person on it, I had less self doubt and less anxiety, and my moods were within the range of average instead of occasionally explosive by my standards, which even then isn't horrible.

 

Depression is assss. Always a cloud hanging around.

 

I had a similar situation when pursuing my dream of becoming a lawyer. Facing a ton of social anxiety was a big hurdle for me, considering the pleads, meeting new clients, and everything else the job demanded.

What really helped me was finding neuropsychological testing near me. Through the testing, doctors discovered that my anxiety was rooted in a traumatic brain injury from when someone tried to kidnap me as a kid. This revelation allowed me to address the root cause rather than just the symptoms.

After that discovery, I started going to individual therapies that made a huge difference in my life. I engaged in social exercises like practicing conversations with strangers, gradually building up confidence. Over time, these techniques helped me manage my anxiety and still follow my professional path.

If you're determined to stay in your field, maybe exploring similar avenues could help. Don't give up on your dreams, but be mindful of your mental health too.

 

There is a quote by Lao Tzu
“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
― Lao Tzu

I know this is just a quote by an ancient philosopher, but there is a lot of truth to this. We (including myself) have a hard time living in the moment. I know that I constantly am worried about my future: health, retirement, wealth, mental health. My past: parenting, financial decisions, regrets.

I always tell my students chasing happiness is like trying to touch the air that passes through fingers with your hand out of the window of a moving car. As soon as you reach for it, it is gone. It is something that you just have to experience in the moment and appreciate it. If we can learn to see the purpose of failure/mistakes as growth, we can begin to have a different response to failure. Rather than being anxious about future failures, you no longer fear them (learning/common sense). Rather than being depressed about past mistakes, you see them as a guide to your future decisions (your wisdom).

This is not a practice that I have conquered (I am no walking monk). This is something that I have to practice and remind myself to practice. We are not too complex. Small simple changes can make significant strides in people's lives.

Begin to see the problem as the problem, work with that. Don't search out the symptoms and try to treat the after effects. I could go on and on. So, I will stop.

But gentlemen we need to take care of ourselves, so that we can take care of those around us. To use the airplane oxygen analogy. If we don't put our mask on first, we will die with everyone around us. Put your mask on and then you can save others.

My wife always ask why men seem so much more violent. I tell her that we have a very low emotional IQ. Most men were never allowed to work (practice) with their emotions, the same as most women. It always makes me laugh, but I tell her that most of us men are walking around emotionally constipated, just waiting to make a mess of ourselves.

 

I recently stopped drinking beer. Which is really difficult for me. I live in the Mecca of Microbrew. We have so many amazing small craft beer joint in California. But I started jogging every morning. I gave up beer (I have an occasional cocktail with the wife). I feel a lot better. Small everyday routine changes will literally change your life for the better.

 

I have personally struggled with goal fixation, or addiction to improvement, for as long as I can remember. Meditation and exploring Taoism and Buddhism have really helped me understand that achieving the next thing will not make me happy (maybe for a short time) and I actually already have everything I need. Although I still strive for improvement of myself and my external situation, I'm learning to embrace the journey, not the destination (cliche, I know). This has done a lot to ease the urgency and anxiety that came with always chasing the next thing to make me feel complete, as well as my self worth issues.

Of course, counseling has been insanely eye opening to why I am the way I am, and even just learning how to allow myself to explore those things. Inner child work has been amazing. Like most of you, I just sucked it up for the past 30+ years, and expected other people to suck it up, too. I was so wrong.

My heart goes out to all of you with medical anxiety. I don't have that form, but my mom does, and her life is consumed by it. It seems like an addiction itself.

I don't know if this will help anyone else, but my journey into healing started with exploring minimalism, which is just re-evaluating your relationship with material possessions. One of their more extreme practices is a "packing party," where you pack an entire room like you are moving. Everything you don't pull out of the boxes in 3 weeks needs to be re-evaluated. Exercises like this made me realize I was surrounding myself with things that I had no real use for, but they made me feel a certain way, and actually added a ton of stress to my life. The next step was exploring why they made me feel that way, and that's how I wound up realizing I have massive control issues stemming from my father outwardly resenting me, leaving our family when I was very young, and constantly trying to manipulate my sister and I. A whole other journey has been realizing we are all victims of victims. That's a tough one.

Anyway, first addressing my outer world allowed me access to my inner world. Maybe someone else can benefit from that.

 

Great comment. And I think I have been experiencing something very similar. The Wellbutrin and Vyvanse don't seem to help my anxiety and A.D.D... I still get hyperfixated on certain tasks, research, projects, this forum, or even video games sometimes. I've talked to my doctor and psych about this and they seem to think it will get better with time and focus with the medicine (I'm very new to being medicated, only a month or so and I'm 38 yrs old). It's crippling at times, and anger inducing most of the time. I hate myself after spending an entire day focusing on one thing, while ignoring/failing at house and husband duties. My wife decided last night, when we got into bed, was a good time to bring up my shortcomings lately with those duties, and it wrecked me. I was wide eyed for hours after that.

Constantly wanting to improve my house, but stopping half way through a project. Cooking dinner and getting sidetracked with looking things up on my phone so I burn the meat, or forget to ever even turn on the grill. Finally finishing a project after 6 months of putting it on hold (only took an extra hour or two), and then feeling unsatisfied and wanting more. Getting the job I was fighting for for over a year, and then being unhappy and bored a month later. It just feels like everything I do isn't good enough for me in the end. Or I can't do it how I wanted to do it.

I think a lot of this is based on materialism and insecurity about my image and abilities. Then the want to be a better man than my father was for my mother or us. And I feel like I'm falling short.

 

Give yourself some grace. You are working a muscle you just discovered. These kinds of things are skills, not character traits. You and I are a little different, in that I become extremely intense about a running list of chores and goals in my head. Maybe something you can try is giving yourself a schedule based on time, not achievement. So instead of saying, "I'm going to finish demoing the bathroom today," try "I'm going to work in the bathroom for 60 minutes." This has helped me move through complex tasks without being as overwhelmed.

I know it is extremely hard, but I want to point you towards guided meditation. It's not what a lot of people think it is-its just learning to be calm and present. It's extremely difficult and frustrating at first. You will have good sessions and not so good sessions. Like everything else, it's a skill you have to work at. It doesn't make you a zen master, but for me at least, it lowers my anxiety baseline. I m still learning to be less reactive.

I think we are all subject to materialism, but you are different because you are beginning to recognize it. Like everything else, living beyond materialism is a skill that must be constantly developed, there is no finish line.

This is my favorite meditation because I have been to that field that he talks about, and it's always been a sacred place to me. Maybe you have a place, too. If you listen to this, be kind to yourself and realize you are just discovering this muscle, like when Neo opened his eyes for the first time in the real world. It will be difficult and uncomfortable.

https://youtu.be/VrsJbudRVTY?si=29L8HqqoSsRIQHpI

These are The Minimalists. Same disclaimer- if you try this stuff it will be difficult and uncomfortable at first, so give yourself permission to just explore it with no expectations. This is just a random episode, they are up to 415 I think.

https://youtu.be/8bd8BoGXqN4?si=dEweT5AR50EaE61T

Good luck and please reach out if you like. I'd love to help and support you on your journey.