Anxiety, and Depression, and Stress

Depression is getting to me. I am on medication and I am seeing a therapist, but it is still getting to me. Just when I feel that I am stronger than the depression, that I can beat it, it comes back stronger than ever before just to show me how wrong I really am.

I feel like I have no reason to be depressed. I have a great husband. Four healthy, happy children and soon to be five healthy, happy grandchildren. I have a nice roof over my head. I have a great car to drive. I have a wonderful job that I love more than anything. I have wonderful brothers and sisters and other extended family that support me in whatever I do.

But still I am depressed.

I feel that whatever I do is not good enough for anyone. No one in my current life treats me this way. But it is the way I feel. Even at school, where I know I do a good job, I am always stressing because I am not doing enough. I feel that I am failing my students by not being better. Then my mood goes spiraling down.

I don’t have any energy. I have great plans to go to the gym and work out – I want to do a 5k run this year and want to train for it…but there is no energy to fulfill those plans. My house is a mess right now – because I have no energy to clean it. My laundry is stacked up so much that it will take forever to get it all folded and put away. But I look at those messes and give up because there is too much to do and I have no energy to do any of it. I know that I could do just a little at a time and before long everything would be clean and tidy once again, but I just look at it and my energy drains.

I want to hide from the world. I want to run away and never return, or I want to hide under my blanket like a small child and never come out. I know I can’t really run away, but I just want to get away to where no one knows me and I can blend in with a crowd and just get lost. As much as I love my job, I even want to just give it all up so that I can hide away from everyone. But the kids, my wonderful students, are the bright spots of my day. They make me want to return.

I hurt all over. My head, my teeth, my back and sometimes, even my skin just hurts. I have a cavity that will be fixed soon, but there is no explanation for the rest of the pain. I have had an ongoing headache for more than two months – almost three months, now. The doctors have found no physical reason for the headache – I have had just about every test imaginable for it and nothing was found. Which is good, but doesn’t solve the problem. I go to a headache specialist in two months – the earliest I could get an appointment.

I am always anxious. I feel like something bad is about to happen at any minute. That the world will end, or that some huge financial disaster will happen. I just feel that I need to prepare for something – or run from something – but I don’t know what it is. I have been having panic attacks when I do “normal” things – going to the gym, going into a convenience store, driving down the street, sitting at home watching television. They happen so often that they are almost my new “normal.” I am on medication for this, too, but the anxiety and panic attacks persevere.

I can’t sleep. I haven’t had more than four hours of sleep for longer than I care to remember. When I finally do fall asleep, I wake up often. Any little noise or movement will wake me up. Then I am tired and exhausted the following day. Some days I feel like I am in a haze. I have taken medication for this, too, but did not like what it did to me. There were incidents when I was told that I had entire conversations that I don’t remember. Once, I was told that I had driven to a fast food place in the evening after I took a sleeping pill, and I didn’t remember any of it. One morning I drove my grandson to day care and couldn’t remember doing it. That was the day I gave that medication up!

I love to write – and even that has become difficult. I force myself to write at least a little each day, but when I go back to read it, I am not satisfied with it. Or I write the beginning of something and never return to finish it. Even with this, it’s hard to keep going.

Depression is not fun. It is like a creature that steals everything from you. It beats you down and does its best to keep you down. It takes away everything that used to make you happy and leaves you with a shell of the person you used to be.

But, I won’t let depression win. It may have me down for now, but in the end, I will win. I don’t know how, but I will win!