Anxiety and Depression

Let’s be real – anxiety and depression suck.

Believe me, I’ve been there. Anxiety and depression can steal your life. They can leave you unable to get out of bed in the morning or trudging through your day feeling like you’re carrying a thousand-pound weight. Or, no matter what you do, you can’t find your way back to a sense of calm.

And it sucks. You want to be in your life, feel excited about things, and be able to enjoy all the good things you have (and I guarantee you there are good things).

But it’s hard to do any of those when you’re in the grips of anxiety and depression.

You’re not alone.

In this day and age, anxiety and depression are widespread, often for good reason. Our modern world has a neverending host of stressors, and many of us have never learned how to manage that stress reliably.

Fortunately, there are ways to manage the stress.

What is anxiety anyway?

Think of anxiety as a kind of free-floating fear, fear without any specific object.

Behind the scenes, the fight or flight branch of the autonomic nervous system (the sympathetic nervous system) becomes activated.

So anxiety may come with irritability (fight response) or a sense that you have to get away from whatever situation you’re currently in (flight response), as well as an increased tendency to perceive threats (there are actual physiological changes in the eyes, ears, and processing centers of the brain that tune us more into threat).

This response is adaptive and designed to help us survive! Adaptive, but unfortunately often mismatched to modern reality.

How about depression?

Depression, on the other hand, is when a shutdown response takes over the nervous system. You become leaden, unable to get yourself engaged or motivated. Depression can happen when you experience chronic stress that you are unable to escape from – or even feel like you’re unable to escape from!

Depression, too, is an adaptive response to these circumstances, originally meant to increase our odds of surviving by helping us conserve energy and other resources.

But again, it is often mismatched to our circumstances in modern life.

Let me help you.

Anxiety and depression can appear separately but often show up together.

Whether your anxiety and depression are chronic or have only recently cropped up in response to events in your life, there is hope. I provide an empathetic listening ear where you can work through the stressors in your life, and as we talk, I will also help you see the places where your nervous system might be getting triggered.

Together, we will find the techniques to help you get back to calm but motivated engagement and determine what changes you need to make to reduce stress. You don’t have to figure these things out alone.

If you’re ready for that journey, then reach out today!