Depression Anxiety Symptoms: A Vicious Cycle

It has been previously assumed that depression and anxiety are two distinct illnesses that may or may not occur simultaneously in a single person. And when they do, it may just be coincidental that these two mental illnesses co-exist. However, recent studies have shown that depression and anxiety symptoms are interrelated. This means that whenever there is depression, there is anxiety.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety is that overwhelming feeling to run away from the cause of stress. The cause of agitation or restlessness is most of the times unknown to the person. However, when the cause of anxiety is known, the person will try his best to avoid the stressor in all possible ways.

Anxiety causes a person to be restless and agitated. He cannot stay at one place, prefers to pace to and fro, do repetitive movements or activity or go frantic and shout just to release the agitation that he feels inside of him. When the anxiety subsides, the person looks normal again as though nothing had happened.

Anxiety is a usually normal reaction. When you are awaiting the result of an examination or a laboratory test, for example, you may have this gut wrenching feeling, as though you want to vomit in anticipation. Anxiety goes away normally for most people, especially if there has been closure to the cause of agitation. For instance the examination result has been released and you found out that you failed. You will feel sad for not making the cut, yet you wouldn't feel agitated or anxious anymore because there has been a revelation, a closure. You know of the results already, and there is nothing left to be anxious about.

However people with chronic anxiety have anxiety symptoms that go beyond the normal. Even if the stressors are not present or have passed, the feeling of anxiety lingers, longer than expected.

What Is Depression?

If anxiety makes a person look at a "morbid" future, depression makes a person "shut down" and give up for any hope of having a bright future (after seeing or drawing a "morbid" future.) It is like that anxiety is the first stage while depression is the second stage.

A person who is depressed looks at his current situation gloomily, as though there is nothing in the world that can make his situation better. During his anxiety attacks, his mind is processing the situation. And because of the hormonal imbalance that goes with anxiety, he thinks illogically and shuts down his system so that the fear that anxiety has brought him be removed from his mind, totally.

However, in doing so, he takes himself towards depression. And with this, anxiety/depression symptoms will manifest.

Anxiety And Depression, Together

When anxiety and depression symptoms co-exist, this condition is called in psychiatry as "co-morbidity." It makes the existence of these two disorders more chronic: meaning, a person with anxiety and depression symptoms will have the symptoms of these two disorders more often than is normal. And when this happens, it will impair a person from functioning at work and will have difficulty maintaining a relationship.

However, clinicians and researchers alike over the past few years are moving towards this new conclusion: depression and anxiety are still two different disorders. However they don't coexist in a person. They are two faces of a single disorder that appear almost simultaneously. This means that anxiety and depression symptoms overlap.

More At Risk

A person with anxiety and depression symptoms raises the bar for suicide risk. The reason is that the anxiety/depression symptoms become a vicious cycle. Whenever a person feels anxious, he will go to a depressed state and goes back to anxiety and repeat the cycle all over again.

Since the person knows deep down that anxiety seems to be where his depression roots, he will dread it more when he feels anxious. With this, he may commit suicide either during the time of his depression or during attacks of anxiety.

If you think that you are experiencing the aforementioned and going in and out anxiety and depression symptoms, you can begin with your self-help therapy by learning how to calm yourself down. Don't be hesitant to seek professional help; a licensed mental practitioner can lead you through your recovery in no time at all.