Everyone has days where they experience more anxiety or sadness than usual. Maybe you have a big speech in your next class or you just received some bad news about a family member’s health. In these circumstances, it is completely normal to feel this way, yet is still unfortunate. However, if you find yourself having excess worry over many things or having more sad days than happier ones, you may be suffering from an anxiety or depressive disorder… or possibly both at the same time.

“Anxiety is when you care too much about everything. Depression is when you don't really care about anything. Having both is just like hell.” -Unknown

Ever since I was approximately twelve years old, I can recall I had more anxiety than other girls my age. I remember my first panic attack occurred when I presented a project in my seventh grade history class. Before I knew it, I was hyperventilating, terrified and embarrassed. These panic attacks and constant anxiety stuck with me throughout middle and high school, and even as of right now.

However, over the past year, I’ve had some hardships that caused some more troubling issues. I started noticing an increase in sleeping, loss of motivation and just overall sadness and discontent with life. One after another, it seemed that issues kept falling on top of me. I finally just snapped one day.

Doctors and nurses named what had happened to me, a "depressive panic attack", however, it felt like a true mental breakdown. I was in the hospital for what seemed like only a few minutes. I was in and out of my own awareness. I had been there for almost seven hours. In those seven hours of observation, doctors concluded that I had clinical depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

All of this eventually lead me to group counseling for individuals like myself, with anxiety and depression. From the program, I gained temporary friendships and suffered through terrible hospital food. However, what I learned from the program were distinct things about what it's like having anxiety and depression. It really improved my outlook on myself and even others like me.

Here are the five ugly truths about what I learned from group counseling:

• If you have an anxiety and depressive disorder, the two disorders conflict with each other. Sometimes, I found myself feeling more anxious than usual. Other moments, I found myself not enjoying things I used to do, sleeping too much, and having trouble getting out of bed. I even found myself having symptoms of both, whereas I would overthink doing something, but have no motivation to do so. When you find yourself diagnosed with both an anxiety and depressive disorder, you find the symptoms of both conflict and match up so much, that you get to the point of losing it or not understanding it. Often, I found myself where I couldn’t describe how I felt to others. I felt anxious and wanted to do things, but I also wanted to stay in bed and never get out.

• If you develop anxiety at a young age, you are more likely to develop a depressive disorder in your late teens or early twenties. My therapist and nurse practitioner both told me this as they were discussing my diagnoses. There is a high link with people who are diagnosed with depression, to have had an anxiety disorder earlier in life (https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/depress...).

• There’s specific medication for people having both anxiety and depressive disorders. Taking a medication that targets just one of the disorders causes plenty of problems. For me, I was taking a generic anxiety medication that did not treat depression. In the end, it made my anxiety and depression sky rocket, which sent me into a mental breakdown. Getting on the right medication and having a doctor observe is the key to living with both of the disorders.

• You may not understand what you're feeling, but your doctor should. Due to the fact that anxiety and depression share a lot of the same symptoms, you may find it hard to notice something different in your thinking and how you feel. It also may take a while for your doctor to diagnose the separate disorders, because it is difficult to separate the two. Because I have GAD, people would dismiss my depressive symptoms altogether. Expressing your concerns to your doctor can help them pinpoint exactly what is wrong.

• You're not alone. Sure, it's cliche, but it's true. I learned that so many other individuals suffer from both anxiety and depression. Almost everyone in the program with me at the time suffered from both. It's incredible, but also sad to see how many others are like you. Realizing that other people are experiencing what you are, makes the recovery process more realistic and fundamentally easier. You'll realize that you were never alone in the first place.

"You were never created to live depressed, defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed or unworthy. You were created to be victorious." -Joel Osteen