Depression And Severe Anxiety: Understanding The Connection

Depression and severe anxiety can sometimes go together or they may afflict you separately. The thin dividing line however will tend to confuse you as to what you are actually suffering from. It will be worthwhile to know more about them.

How the Human Mind Works

It is said that stressors cause depression and severe anxiety. A stressor that can cause anxiety or depression to one person may not be the same stressor that can make another person feel depressed and anxious. The reason is that the minds of different people process stressors differently.

The human mind learns through experience: everything it sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels are stored in it for later retrieval and use. Experiences both good and bad are stored in the conscious part or the subconscious part. It is in the subconscious part that we hide those things that make us sad, angry and afraid.

Putting things into the subconscious is the normal reaction of the human mind with stressors. It pushes back bad experiences so that we can live normally without dwelling on these sad thoughts. However, depression and anxiety may occur when at some point in our lives we "re-experience" previously-stored stressful events. It brings back to the conscious mind the things the mind wants to forget. And when this happens, depression and severe anxiety can strike.

To Understand Depression, Understand Anxiety First

To understand depression, one needs to understand anxiety, too. Anxiety is a physiological state usually identified with worry, fear, or apprehension. Anxiety disorders refer to a wider range of anxieties, fears, nervous conditions, and phobias that may be directly or indirectly related to depression and other behavioral disorders.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

There are several types of anxiety disorders but the main one is a generalized type of anxiety disorder. Severe anxiety or chronic anxiety disorder is a prolonged state of anxiety. The duration of the disorder is sometimes so long-lasting and far-reaching that the anxiety is no longer focused on any object or situation but rather unspecific. Thus, severe anxiety sometimes leaves the sufferer wondering what the cause of the anxiety is in the first place.

Other Types of Anxiety Disorders

Other types of anxiety that may become severe anxiety are panic disorder, agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Panic disorders are brief surges of intense fear and terror that makes the anxious person uncontrollably shake, be confused, nauseous, or irrationally fearful of nothing in particular except doom. Intense, severe anxiety usually is associated with panic disorder.

Agoraphobia is a complicated, severe stage of panic disorder. Phobias are irrational fears. Phobic disorders are dependent on a certain situation that elicits the fear. Social anxiety disorders or social phobias are also intense or severe anxiety manifestations that affect social performance or relating in public.

OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder leaves the anxious person consistently depressed, distressed, and restless. Post-traumatic stress disorder happens after an experience that has been very traumatic.

Understanding Major Depression

Major depression and severe anxiety are brought about by a combination of depression or anxiety disorder symptoms that prevents the sufferer from functioning at work, at school, at mealtimes, and even at pleasurable occasions. Severe anxiety and depression are invasive and repetitive, persistently prevalent, and become problematic.

Root Cause of Depression

Severe depression and anxiety may be rooted in biological or genetic backgrounds of individual's families, stresses at the home or school or even the workplace. However, even individuals without family history of depression or anxiety are prone to mild to severe anxiety and depression as induced by external factors.

Severe anxiety will be very obvious when one or two or a combination of the following symptoms begin to be evident: unusual irritation, persistent emptiness of feeling, guilt and worthlessness feelings, lethargy, insomnia or, conversely, oversleeping, delusions of grandeur, increased and incessant sexual drive, suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

Acute depression and severe anxiety can be a debilitating combination that may occur even during childhood, sometimes persisting throughout adolescence and young adulthood, even onto adulthood if not addressed properly. Diagnosis and evaluation and the right mix of medication and therapy and support are all needed to address this serious condition.