Anxiety and Depression has made life very hard for me.

[LargeLizards]

I'm trying to keep my head afloat. Doing my best but there are times where it's overwhelming. Ever since the pandemic and the deaths of a few loved ones I've been an anxious and depressed mess. My hobbies no longer give me joy, my relationship have become strained because I treated my partner more like a therapist than a loved one to the point where their love for me has dwindled.

I feel lost. I'm trying. I really am. It's just a lot. I'm seeking support through therapy and treatment but I just feel drained.

[secrets22]

I believe the pandemic affected many of us, to the point of not being back to how we once were , and then the sense of loss when we lose people becomes overwhelming. And i know i wont ever be as i once was, grief plays havoc with our emotions, and dragging ourselves out the pit we find ourselves in is a mammoth task. I wish you well and hope you soon regain 'you'.

[Sunrisetabby]

Good morning LargeLizards, I have always been fascinated by large lizards and alligators and crocodiles. Part of what fascinated me about those animals is that it seems like they spend almost all of their life doing nothing, many essentially hibernating all winter, and then in the summer usually there seem to just be basking in the sun. BUT, when they move, they move like lightning, and their attacks to get prey are often awesome and ferocious.

I have been, and am still, lost, but I I am increasingly realizing for me it is not about finding an answer, but instead learning to enjoy the search. I like a lot of Cal Newport 's writing on Deep Work, and he often talks about on interviews how there is no longer a real good definition of productivity. I used to do research and I was always fascinated by the professors that essentially had one good idea in their career, one flash of inspiration, and managed to turn it into a couple papers, and a tenured lifetime position of leisure.

It sounds almost grotesque, but at least for me is that I want to be lost. I mean there is no way to discover new things unless you look in different places. And, sure it may be a ridiculous stretch even in my own wild imagination to say that me last three years miserable and depressed and unable to do something was a rich productive time, I still think and try to think and am still trying to think that maybe it actually was.

I think part of it for me, is that I don't really want to be happy, but instead I want to try and find meaning and hopefully impact positive change. Part of the problem with that is that dreams of grandiosity and cynicism at the horrendous current state of affairs can wreck havoc on your mental health.

[The_Butterfly]

How do you differentiate between a therapist and a loved one? I might unintentionally be heading down this path myself.

[LargeLizards in reply to The_Butterfly]

If you're venting for large periods of time nearly everything you're with the person. Bringing it up now and then is okay but be aware of boundaries.

[The_Butterfly in reply to LargeLizards]

Thank you for this !

[Weatherwoman]

That's one of the saddest things about Severe Anxiety & Depression is the taking away of the life we would have lived if Not for the Mental Illness that took that away! I am much older now & while I don't want to get stuck in regrets, I know For Sure that if I hadn't (and, still do to an extent) suffered with Terrible Anxiety/Dep. especially at a time when there was No proper help, medication, books, Nothing really, I Know that I would have had the life I wanted. But, word to the young on this site --you are lucky that you live in a time that there is better (not the best), but at least better help out there, and the Stigma is NOWHERE near what it was when in the "dark ages," of when I was young.

[Weatherwoman]

Thank you for your reply & understanding. Woah --No truer words spoken! How I do wish that I had done things differently; but, as they say, "Hindsight is 20/20 vision!" And, I guess, we just have to live with that!

[Teaching]

You are not alone. It can be overwhelming sometimes. Keep trying!