Imagine having a constant war inside your mind. Two sides fighting for control, but only ending up destroying the soil they battle on. This is exactly what having anxiety and depression is like.

Being a person who faces one mental illness invokes a lot of courage and strength on a daily basis. However, there are individuals that face two or more at the same time. Having both anxiety and depression can cause an individual to live their lives in constant fear of everything, but have no willpower to overcome that fear.

Anxiety on its own is debilitating on many levels. To have a constant and overwhelming fear building inside you every day is enough to make anyone want to scream. Always worrying about every little detail or every inevitable event is a characteristic ever present in people with diagnosed anxiety. Some cases are worse, some less severe, but all equally serious.

Depression is anxiety's opposite. It is the lack of energy or care to do much of anything besides sleep. The unwillingness to try to clean your room or do that assignment because you are just too down and out. The only thing depression allows is darkness to take the mind and sadness to take over all other emotions.

When these two illnesses come together in one mind, the war begins to wage. Imagine part of your mind wanting to take care of everything at once and worrying about all of the things that need to be done while the other side of your mind has already given up on succeeding and does not want to do anything but lay in bed and cry. The want to do everything and the lack of will to do everything leave you dazed and in pain.

Even if you decided to try that nap, your anxiety will keep your mind going a mile a minute to ensure sleep evades you. The deprivation of sleep does nothing to sooth the ever-present exhaustion that had plagued your body due to the depression.

These feelings are not okay. They hurt you and they tear your sanity apart. If you think you have anxiety or depression or even both of them, go talk to a professional. Get yourself the help you need so you can live a balanced life.