My counsellor told me that depression is often anger turned inwards, and that anxiety is anger turned sideways. Not sure if that applies to everyone, but it does fit for me.

Lady, I had a therapist tell me once that the world only wants to allow illness to occur below the neck. If we have high blood pressure, we don't question the need to take blood pressure meds. If we have an infection, we readily take antibiotics. By the same token, I think depression is just an illness above the neck and has to be treated as an illness. Even "crazy" is an illness, if by crazy we mean severe mental disorders like schizophrenia. Having said this, I do recall telling my doctor years ago, when I first started treatment, that I thought I was going crazy. But the more I learn about depression, the more informed I become about the illness, the less crazy I feel because I have more specific explanations to account for my behavior and mental state.

Ok this entire topic was wearing on me so I called my counselor, whom I've been seeing for about 1.5 years now and said "What am I?". She said she would say I'm depressed and have been that way for a very long time, probably since childhood or at least adolecence. That it is going to take time to get through everything but I am fine. She was real encourage about me getting the appointment with the phychiatrist. I go and see him next Tuesday. I don't want to offend anyone but just as I felt when the doctor first told me I was depressed and he wanted to try some medication for me, I feel like someone is telling me I'm crazy. I do feel insane for all the thoughts that go through my head and everything but I'm told that crazy people don't know they are crazy. Does anyone else have these feelings?

Chemicle imballance, depression, bi-polar, panic disorder, anxiety attacks.... Gesh! Someone stop the world I want off!!!!! I've heard all of these terms before. All I know is that I quit smoking almost 3 years ago and I have been a mess ever since. I don't know if smoking gave my mind the time out it needed to catch up on things, if I was self-medicating, or one just depressed all the time and didn't know it. I have no idea! All I know is I hate the feelings I have now and I don't feel like I'm in control half the time anymore. I don't want to redo the bathroom tonight, I want to run away! I want to take a plan trip to Italy and see the Michael Angelo paintings for myself in the Sistine Chaple, I want to take a 7 day cruise with my boyfriend and my boys, I want to take a week off from work and spend it with my daughter and her new baby. I want, I want, I want. All I ever hear is more, more, more. A hurricane in my mind... Boy that is terminology I can relate to. So many things going on at once. I get so caught up in everythign that needs to be done that I don't get anything completed and really get very little even started. The boys needs, work projects, home projects, housework, school work, homework with the kids, shopping, laundry, church, find time to be social because we are social beings, get out and meet new people in my new area, find a mentor, finish school, find a study buddy, keep in touch with friends, call my mom, check on dad, forgot grandma's birthday... the list goes on and on. Dysfunctional??? Yep, I think so.

hi, is this an open discussion?? ;p Lets see... I had my first diagnosed depressive crisis back in 1991 and have been on a roller coaster since. In 1991 I stopped functioning and was given prozac for 6 months in a liquid to get me back in shape for fall classes. In 2000 I had a miscarrage and say an art therapist / soc-worker who helped me put my thoughts back in order. So my nov 2005 depression crisis started off as exhaustion, panic attack, and total melt-down. With effexor I can back to the land of the living in 3 months and have decided that this was not going to occur again. So I went on a waiting list for a psychologist, who sent me to a psychiatrist... my doctor sent me to the psychiatric hospital for another evaluation. So I am bipolar! My father was a rapid cycling bipolar with very little control and an alergy to lithum. I learned bipolar "thinking" from him. My mother is mentally retarded (works at a 16 yrs old level) so I learned anxiety from her. and recently when we tried to wean a bit of the meds I flew for a week and crashed! oh what a productive and clear minded week! I wish I could live that high always - no crash, no blinding jealousy, no paranoia, and none of the rest... so I seem to have the chemical imbalance. I guess it was the exercises that alerted me to something going wrong. Where before I would have ridden the high and suffered the crash, I saw where I was going with all the thoughts and pulled mysefl out... I left work, went to see my husband and talked about the nastiness. i told him how I felt and through that I saw that I was making no sense. I told him about wanting to pack-up myself and moving to a recusive convent... and how I wanted to redo the bathroom that evening ... and I was going a mile a minute. I guess I did the thought log through a discussion with a very INattentive and busy husband. The quiet and the calm let me catch myself. I did not need to panic, I did not need to escape this time. I did not use all my energy trying to regain control of every single notion in my head. I accepted the hurricane for what it was - the storm of my imbalance. I rested and I accepted. See I am hypomanic, I still have control and do not loose touch with the reality that this is not "normal" for me! is this what you wanted to know? of course I have had this one time thing so at the next I will have two reference points to compair... and will be a better guinea pig! :p

Lady, It sounds like you have panic disorder, not just anxiety disorder. One of those fine lines these mood disorders walk! I went through that as well and took clonazepam (which I think is Klonipin) for awhile. I definitely have experienced the shortness of breath, but thankfully it only lasted for a short while.

Caimansbetty Just out of curiosity, is your anxiety so bad at times that you have a hard time breathing? I too take medicine twice a day for the anxiety, buspar and I take Kolnipin when I need something extra. It really does get the best of me and I have to STOP immediately and regain control. Lady

Lady, I, too, struggle mightily with anxiety, which my doctor says is a symptom of depression. It's been one of the real challenges in my treatment program. I have to take anti-anxiety meds (Xanax XR) along with an antidepressant (Cymbalta, which also treats anxiety) to keep a lid on all of it. I suppose anxiety falls under the symptom category of "restlessness"--that inability to stop the incessant flow of thoughts and worries. It's absolutely one of the worst symptoms of depression for me, but also one that I hope will respond well to CBT. Thanks

I'm not sure what I would be classified as. I go through bouts of depression. I will be fine for days, sometimes even a week and then I'm down again. The negative thoughts set it and it's off to the races! I don't think I have extreme highs, I just think that when I'm not low, I'm happy and talkative. If I'm ok, I'm normal; If I'm not ok, I'm depressed. I constantly fight with anxiety about everything good and bad. What does that make me?

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder two years ago, but it took ten years to reach that diagnosis, which is fairly typical. We go to the doctor when we are depressed, not when we're manic, so the other half of the illness often goes unidentified and untreated. In my case, I suffer from radical mood swings and severe irritability, and can function on only a few hours sleep during the manic phase. There are also those occasional times of sheer elation--a kind of natural high that no one would want to be "cured" of. The tricky part about bipolar is that, as the symptoms listed indicate, depression is embedded within the disorder, and it takes good communication between patient and physician to untangle the two conditions. To make matters more complicated, there are two kinds of recognized bipolar disorder: bipolar I and bipolar II. The second is characterized by hypomania (a less extreme form of mania), but in some cases the distinction is still a very tough one to make. Lastly, treatment for bipolar (like any disorder, I suppose) is a process. I discovered, for instance, that although bipolar involves depression, bipolar medications don't always treat the depression itself, so a combination of bipolar and antidepressant drugs may be necessary. I would like to hear from members who have bipolar and have been going through the CBT program. Do the exercises work as well for the highs as for the lows? Thanks