My Relationship with Depression

Comorbidity between Depressive Disorders and Anxiety Disorders is such a common thing. One would think they’re similar and work together to make a person feel like crap. But in all honesty, I think that these two are opposing forces that end up pushing people back and forth between not caring at all anymore to caring way too much.

I’ve known when my depression flares up because I won’t want to do anything. Like… anything. I don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t check my phone, and I do the bare minimum for the dogs to be happy. I have had a much less turbulent relationship with this part of my mental health, because it’s like she’s always there. Depression is there to remind me that when I reach too far or stretch my resources too thin, I will feel like shit.

It certainly does sound like I’m saying my depression is a good thing, but that is anything but the truth. Depression has taken a lot out of my life, and many other people’s lives. Depressive episodes has caused me to miss weddings of my closest friends, good-bye parties of people I won’t see again, and after work drinks where coworkers bond together. Depression likes it when I isolate myself from everyone other than her, and depression loves it when I continue to pass up on behavior activating activities.

Luckily for me, depression rarely takes the driver’s seat of my life. She usually reserves that for Anxiety. I think it’s because my depression knows, that if she lets Anxiety run my life for long enough, I will get exhausted enough to run back to her. Anxiety is a state in which I overanalyze, care about, and worry about a lot of different things. The most triggering thought for my anxiety is the uncertainty of life. Depression knows that something is bound to pop up that will remind me that life is uncertain, and she knows that once Anxiety’s had enough of driving my life, she’ll park and have a full on panic attack break down. In swoops depression to tell me that I don’t need to do anything and I don’t need to care. I just need to lay in bed and let depression do her work. Like I mentioned in my last post, anxiety has her purpose and is a friend that has “helped me out” before. After a period of letting depression halt everything, anxiety always gets restless. Anxiety fuels my desire for perfection and starts to set impossibly high standards for me to reach. Of course, anxiety is setting me up for failure, but at least she’s got my back when depression’s being that destructive friend that doesn’t want you to do anything but commiserate with her.