Posted by Noa on November 2, 2001, at 14:37:20
In reply to Re: Is anxiety worse than depression FOR YOU, posted by Greg A. on October 28, 2001, at 10:51:19
Good Question to ask.
I, too, have been in the depressive camp for years and years, and over time have come to realize that despite how out of control it can become, my depression seems to be a (albeit very painful and destructive) way that I attempt to turn off intolerable anxiety.
I am not on the surface an anxious person. I'm not the one worrying about things. But deep down, I think I am quite anxious. It is just that when anxiety surfaces, I seem to go immediately into some kind of detachment mode--dissociation-like avoidance, and a lowering of mood as though my mind and body are putting the systems into a low-power mode to avoid overloading and crashing the whole system.
There have been very few times in my life when an extremely acute situation caused hyperarousal in an adaptive way, like a few years ago when my sister was on one of two planes that took off same time same airline same airport same destination country and one of the planes exploded after take-off and I was up all night with the adrenaline pumping, trying to access information on which flight was which. That was very different--I felt my thinking was clearer and faster, I felt energized and challenged, despite the anxiety and fear. It was clear to me that night that the arousal system really does have a good purpose and can work right, despite how dysfunctional it usually is.
I think most of my anxiety is related to deeply held terrible beliefs about myself. When something is going on in my life that stirs up those feelings, it has the potential to be so overwhelming. Mostly, I am good at turning it off, like I said, through shutting down, avoiding, getting depressed. When this system works well, I go into a lower mood, but the depression doesn't really kick in too much. Maybe I'll numb myself with computer games, or sleep a lot, etc. But sometimes, either I can't turn it off, and the anxiety is unbearable, followed by agitated depression, or I do go into the avoidance mode, but the depression takes over.
I'm getting better, through therapy and meds, in talking about these bad deep feelings without the anxiety storming in. But there is still a lot of work to do....
poster:Noa
thread:13064
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011025/msgs/13349.html