Anxiety, depression and fatigue all together feels like a knot, and I don't know where to begin unraveling it.

[Navella]

26 year old male, inherited a generalized anxiety disorder from my mom's side of the family. I don't suffer from full blown panic attacks like those you read about in text books. My anxiety is usually just a constant white noise that makes it impossible to ever relax, the physical manifestation of flight or fright. I jump easily, I become easily agitated, I have terrible insomnia and it's hard to focus most of the time, especially when it comes to creative tasks. I'm a writer and rookie artist, so that's a big obstacle for me, since being creative helps me feel accomplished on a day to day basis.

When I was younger my anxiety was never this bad. I'd say sometime after high school (2013) is when it started to worsen. I took a break from school to figure out what to do with my life, and entered the workforce. Poor sleep habits followed me from adolescence, and combined with anxiety, have created a depression-like state that I've been in for half a decade, now. I often stay up til 3-4 am, partly to seize as much reprieve as I can before the next exhausting day of work, and partly because I'm often most capable of creative writing late at night. It's a bad habit, and I know it contributes to my issues, but I don't know how to quit it. Another part of my anxiety is anticipatory, which keeps me from really doing much before I work on a given day because all I can focus on is mentally preparing for work. So if I try and better my sleep schedule by sleeping earlier, I feel like I'm not going to have any time to myself, any time to do anything but sleep, anticipate work, and actually work.

Concerning work, I give my all in it. I work in stocking at a grocery store at the moment, so it gets labor intensive. I return home exhausted, sweating, but even on days off where I'm not exhausted, I get absolutely nothing done. I sit here and I watch Netflix or chat with online friends. Sometimes I get some writing done or do something more productive, but not very often. I feel like the only way I can find motivation to do things is from the expectations of others. As soon as it's all about me and what I want, my inspiration and motivation is just lacking. It's not that I don't want to do the things I like doing, I just can't focus on it and get it done. But I don't know if that's purely from sleep issues or also from something concerning my anxiety, hence the knot.

Concerning sleep, I get average 6 hours, wake up once during that usually to pee. I always feel tired and exhausted, no matter how I sleep, which has partially cemented my poor sleep habits. I've taken to warm showers and lavender aroma to help, but they only help marginally. Even without poor sleep habits I still have a hard time going to sleep in general. Takes me half an hour to forty-five minutes on average to fall asleep, and no amount of melatonin or other sleep aids have been able to help.

I've tried a few meds, namely Effexor, as well as smoking CBD oil, neither of which did anything whatsoever, for anxiety or sleep. Currently in video chat therapy with a therapist, and he's given me some ideas on things I can do, but nothing has really helped thus far. At this point I want to reach out and try to see if I can find other people who have also had 'knots' that they struggled with, and hopefully found a way to unravel.

To summarize, I have poor, cemented sleep habits that exist in a nasty cycle with my anxiety disorder, which makes relaxing (and sleeping) difficult. Together, they create a daily haze of fatigue and lack of focus that's created depression-like symptoms on top of everything else. I don't know where to begin trying to reverse any of it. In order to fix my sleep I need to somehow mentally conquer my anticipatory anxiety prior to work, but in doing so I feel like I'll lose out on nighttime productivity, not to mention I feel like I'm a night owl by nature.

I don't know how to win. I don't know how to get out of this. I've never once felt suicidal, and I suppose I'm very high-functioning by depression standards seeing as I go to work, interact with friends, etc, but I'm not productive in my own time, and I'm always tired. In short, I'm not happy. And there's no point to life if you're not happy.

If you've read this far, thank you. I could use any advice I'm given. I will likely crosspost this to other mental support pages and subreddits, to cast the biggest net I can.

Thanks again.

[thechae]

I want to say thank you for letting us know how you’re feeling. My anxiety leads to me being in this fog and it feels like I am constantly running but I’m getting nowhere. Personally, I realized that time management is big for me. By creating a schedule for myself and a spreadsheet of achievable goals that I want to do for myself, it has lessened the anxiety for me. Mind you, I did say ACHIEVABLE which means breaking down big projects and making them easier for me to complete.

[Marshmellowshair]

Hello, unfortunately I can relate to all of what you're going through. For me the late night staying up watching Netflix or other TV is the way to avoid feelings. I think instead of looking at your behavior you should look deeper at your feelings. Check out Teal Swan on YouTube. He has a lot of interesting insight. Her video on being fractured is worth looking into.

[creekgirl]

As a creative person myself I relate to a lot of what you're saying here, Navella! Rest assured you share qualities and challenges with a great many creative people.....with time management, being a night owl, anxieties, etc. Anxiety is a function of imagination, creative people have imagination in spades. So you could consider anxiety the flip side of a creative asset.

[creekgirl]

Another thought, hope it helps: you mention taking after your mom's side of the family. In my case, it was my dad. He was a very anxiety prone, pessimistic depressive. My mom, on the other hand, was a cheerful, happy-go-lucky optimist. I always figured I took after my dad, but one day thought, why not tap into my "inner mom"? After all, she too is a part of my genetic composition. Maybe you too have a family member you'd rather relate to? They're in your genetics somewhere too!

[Navella in reply to creekgirl]

I'm a strange combination of my parents, and it's a deadly one, actually lol. My mom is easily agitated and anxious, but my dad is mellow towards everything, and very bad at showing emotions. So am I. I have the emotions and thought patterns of my mother but the outward appearance and mannerisms of my dad. When I leave it unchecked it means I bottle things up and don't express anything, until it leaks out in soft crying in the back room of work on a particularly stressful day. xD

I'm working on taking down my walls more, and reaching out to friends when I need to. Seems so simple but it's not.

[creekgirl]

Well, good for you for reaching out in this forum then. Maybe good practice for your face-to-face relationships? Or mask-to-mask these days.

Speaking of genetics.........there are ways I relate to nobody in my whole family. I grew up thinking I must be a bad person because I found family get-togethers pretty boring. It wasn't until I was grown up and discovered the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator that it all made sense, and in a no-fault way. They were all S types. I'm an N. Many of the things they liked to talk about just weren't things that interested me that much.

The beauty of Myers-Briggs is there is no right or wrong, no good or bad types. Just different kinds of people. If you aren't familiar with M-B, you may want to take the quiz. Once familiar with the categories you can pretty much figure out the personality types of family and friends. Myers-Briggs sure has helped me accept myself and others.

[Navella in reply to creekgirl]

I'm ISFJ, I've known my MB for a while and did learn things from it. I know that if my hard work (which I emulate with everything) goes unnoticed, that's a powerful blow to my mood and self esteem, which makes sense. I'm all about pleasing others and working hard to do so, but not when it comes to myself. Something I have to work on.

[creekgirl]

Do you mean hard work at your job or your creative work or both? What kind of writing/art do you do?

[Navella in reply to creekgirl]

I guess both.

Taught myself to write through fanfiction since thirteen, and I still write it as a hobby. I want to become a TV writer for cartoons, using it. And I've just recently begun learning to draw as well.

[creekgirl]

I'm old, I had to look up "fanfiction." What kind of cartoons?

[Navella in reply to creekgirl]

Anything aimed at children and thier families. Most media companies have begun to realize over the past twenty years that narrowed demographic targeting is inefficient. Modern cartoons like Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Friendship is Magic, Steven Universe, etc are 'aimed' at children, but the characters, plots and humor contain content that anyone from any age can enjoy. That is where the money is at.

I want to create more cartoons like those. ^^

[creekgirl]

Cool! How do people get into that? Do you submit an online portfolio to producers???

[Navella in reply to creekgirl]

A bachelor's degree in anything relating to creative writing, and yes, creating your own content that you pitch to producers. I'm involved in a large fan project right now that will be interacting with real tv writers and voice actors, so I'm hoping to get my foot in, there.

[creekgirl]

WOW! That sounds promising!

[Joy2020]

You need a complete physical health checkup you may have underlying health conditions such as hyothryoidism. Please get your lab work

[Joy2020 in reply to Joy2020]

It may also be your diet. Best more protein

[Navella in reply to Joy2020]

Lol, if it was as simple as hyperthyroidism that'd be a blessing. Way easier to treat that than a web of mental-based issues.

Do have the lab work, haven't been yet on account of closings from the plague 2.0. Was planning to soon just to rule it out.

[Joy2020 in reply to Navella]

Mental illness stems from physical illness if you have bad teeth heart problems autoimmune disease all cause mental disorders