Let's Talk About Anxiety & Depression
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Health and Wellness

Let's Talk About Anxiety & Depression

The most difficult, necessary article I will have to write.

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Let's Talk About Anxiety & Depression
Alexandra Burns

Anyone who can relate to the experiences of depression and anxiety understands it is a difficult conversation to have. In fact, this article will be the first time I publicly share my story and I won’t lie, it’s slightly terrifying. Despite my reservations and fears about going public about my subjective journey with depression and anxiety, I also believe my voice needs to be heard. I am passionate about opening up the conversation surrounding mental health in our country. Fifty years ago, the approach our healthcare system and society undertook to combat mental health was atrocious and unspeakable. While I believe our healthcare system has made significant progress over the past 50 years, I hope 50 years from now society finds our current methodology as abhorrent.

In conjunction with the aforementioned statement, the truth is that a detrimental stigma pervades the conversation when it comes to mental health within our society today. This negative undertone trickles down into the quality of healthcare provided to those seeking assistance, as well as their willingness to seek treatment in the first place. Politically, legislation on mental health services provided and covered under various insurance policies is improving, yet quality professionals are few and far between. We need a reformation both publicly and socially if our country is going to progress as a more emotionally intelligent nation.

Think about the stigma surrounding the term “mentally ill.” Does the image of “crazy” people talking to themselves run through your mind? Or what about someone wearing a white gown trapped inside a psychiatric ward screaming their lungs out? We see images in the media or in movies and TV shows that paint extreme portraits of the “mentally ill” that distance ourselves from such an extreme. This categorizes them as “others.” The truth is, anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. In fact, it is estimated that only about 17% of U.S adults are considered to be in a state of optimal mental health. Anxiety is like a Likert scale. We all experience anxiety throughout our lives. Anxiety is what drives us to study hard for a test, prepare for a job interview, be alert when traveling to a new destination, and protect ourselves from harm. But oftentimes anxiety takes over, due to stress, lack of exercise, the inability to quiet the chatter in the mind, or a chemical imbalance in the brain.

Suffering from mental health issues can be as unassuming as succumbing to the mental and physical effects of stress, battling impulse control, heightened sense of anxiety and worry, and extreme emotions/attitudes surrounding weight loss, body image, and food. I talk to friends, colleagues, and people I meet on a day-to-day basis and after hearing their stories, I know they could benefit from counseling, literature, and coping strategies. On a positive note, many of them are aware of the mind-body connection and take care of their mental health as much as their physical health. But many are still in denial of the importance of taking time to care for your mental well-being.

One of the most challenging aspects of the situation is that people, even in 2016, are almost guided into feeling shame or weakness. They are meant to feel that they are in someway less competent to perform than another individual. They feel they are isolated in their suffering and are afraid of being judged. The crazy thing is that the CDC estimates that by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability throughout the world. Let's not forget that physical disability and mental disability go hand in hand. Anyone who has experienced a physical trauma, even as common as a broken bone, can relate to the stress and anxiety that arises from being unable to continue your routine and participate in the activities that are meaningful to you on a daily basis.

We live in a world where we’re blasted with mass murder, innocent loss of life, and xenophobic hatred. It’s natural to worry. It’s natural to feel anxious and stressed. What’s unnatural is when people would rather suffer in silence than feel they can openly talk about the difficulties in their life and reach out for help. The state of our country, and the world, showcase the need for outlets available for people to express their fears and concerns and receive support and understanding. In order to face the harsh reality of the world today, we need to be united and honest in conversation and support. Newsflash, every single person in the world could benefit from a little time with an amazing therapist... just saying.

So now I will share a small slice of my own journey. I developed depression when I was 14 years old, my freshman year of high school. My mother was in the hospital, her organs were shutting down, and the doctor told me she had a “3% chance to live.” Prior to high school, I attended a small, bilingual Ukrainian grammar school where I literally knew everyone, and so did our parents. Most of them had gone to the same grammar school when they were young, the first generation of immigrant Ukrainian parents. The transition to high school was difficult. I was a tall, lanky tomboy who loftily stared at the girls wearing makeup and waxing their eyebrows. Meanwhile, my frizzy hair and newly acquired braces weren’t much help to my self-esteem. I was doing my best to transition to a high school 10x the size of my previous school. I didn’t know anyone, I was going through puberty, and my mother was dying when I needed her most. I am one of four siblings, an older brother and sister, who were in college at the time, and a younger brother, who I felt I had become responsible for in many ways that first year of high school. My mother was sick for months. Christmas passed… then New Year’s Eve… then my birthday… and I would spend my time after school at the hospital nearly every day doing homework. Then I would go home and help my dad with the laundry, making dinner, and making sure the house was clean and my brother was ready for school the next day. I felt like I had no one to talk to. I was so afraid to open up to anyone that I just internalized that entire first year, going deeper and deeper into my responsibilities and myself. I would hide on the stairs and listen to my father cry when they brought my mother home to pass away “in peace.” I would watch him refuse to leave her side. I watched myself grow up too fast.

A miracle happened at the end of that year. My mother didn’t pass away. The doctors were wrong. It’s impossible to find a word for the feeling of almost losing a loved one and discovering they survived. Despite the blessings I felt, the depression had already sunk its claws into my skin. It felt like a slow, shadowy poison that ebbed and flowed, pulsing through my body with varying degrees of intensity and capacity. I can say this now in retrospect, but at the time, it wasn’t easy for me understand. My parents were too consumed with life to see that I was suffering more than normal teenage angst. I don't blame them. They came from parents who survived WWII, parents who were homeless, lost everything they had and ran for their lives. My parents didn’t understand. They had 3 other children who never presented these symptoms and I think, they didn’t really know what to do with me. Deep down I think they felt tremendous guilt and shame. They may have blamed my pain on their own shortcomings as parents. I knew it was all too much for them. They couldn’t handle it. They didn’t know how. To be honest, I felt like it was “too much” for anyone because 12 years ago, I felt no one talked about depression or anxiety. Everything seemed so hushed. So I handled it. Not always in the best way, but they best way I knew how as a teenager. Sometimes I made bad choices. Sometimes I made choices I am extremely proud of. Sometimes I look back and think, “How the hell did you do that?” My parents, and grandparents, instilled in me an inner drive to survive, no matter what. To be strong, no matter what. To stand back up, no matter what. I took AP classes, I held leadership positions, and I continued to push myself forward. I relied on the help of a large support system of friends, teachers, and my siblings. While my parents may not have been able to be as emotionally available or sensitive to what I was struggling with, they always loved me and supported me the best they could.

Depression may take hold during the most difficult times in our lives, but its roots are much more complicated. The web of negative self talk, the physical symptomotology, the isolation, the anger, the frustration, the feeling as though the hurt will never let up…until one day it does. As I graduated high school, I realized it wasn’t anyone’s “job” to help me be happy but my own. I chose to be happy. Some days were better than others, and obviously I'm leaving out much detail, but slowly, I came through it. I looked at my life from the other side of depression and felt like the luckiest person in the universe....until the anxiety hit.

I remember having my first panic attack. No exaggeration, I thought I was going to die. I was with my cousin shopping at the mall when it just overcame me, with no provocation. I was 19, my first year of college. At first, the panic attacks were extremely infrequent. Then, after I had had a few, whenever I started to feel extremely anxious, I began worrying that I would have another one of those ungodly panic attacks again. The fear of another panic attack would send me into a panic attack. A vicious, cruel cycle. Extreme anxiety is one of the most debilitating, frustrating, out of body experiences anyone can endure. After I stopped fighting the fact that I got bit by the anxiety beast, after I stopped feeling sorry for myself, after I stopped being angry at my brain and body for "doing this to me," it got better. How did it get better?

1. Mindful Meditation (This is everything. Learning to clear the mind of past and future thinking and be in the present moment. Using a 'noting technique' to label thoughts that arise in conjunction to thinking and feeling, and gently returning to the breath and the body.)

2. Exercising More.

3. Deepening my Yoga Practice.

4. Eating Healthy.

5. Taking Care of Myself.

6. Sleeping Enough.

7. Living in the Moment.

The battle with depression/anxiety is a subjective journey with different tools and outcomes for everyone. Some people struggle for their entire lives. Some people may struggle for a few years. Others, a few months. The point is, it is possible to be happy, no matter where you are on the depression/anxiety scale. There is support. You don't have to feel ashamed or alone. EVER.

It is fundamental that our generation makes the transition of discussing and addressing mental health concerns completely different than our parents’ generation did. We need to stop calling people “crazy.” Mental health professionals are not “shrinks.” You are not weak, inferior, or any less competent because you go to therapy. You’re a human being living with the complexities of the human brain and you are intelligent, beautiful, and perfect the way you are.

Love,

Alex <3

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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