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.
Don't know what to do. I can't live like this anymore
Found a therapist, but they don't yet know about my actual anxiety/depression...
Is my birthday today and anxiety and depression is celebrating it with me.and I didn’t not invite Than ... 🤔
My journey about anxiety + depression and how i really cope it with my own help and ofc little help from family.
I don't know what it means to have fun
