Stress, Anxiety, Depression

Stress, Anxiety, Depression (SAD)

I, too, have experienced stress, anxiety and depression, like many people.

Stress

Stress (feelings of being tired and stunned) is about eradicating the stressor. Some stress can be useful and get you to perform better. Some stressors may bother you, but you can cope with them. But overwhelming amounts can become emotionally draining. Leaving you stunned and tired. These feelings can last for hours, resulting in fatigue. The stress won’t lift until the stressor has been dealt with in some way, eradicated in some way.

Anxiety

Anxiety breathing exercises help when faced with an anxious situation, as do statements such as - it won't be a catastrophe, unlikely to be as bad as you think. I liken anxiety to that of a little pussy cat sitting next to you. If you keep it like that, the little cat is indeed small and friendly. If you feed it anxiety, that animal can grow into a ferocious lion. Anxiety can be caused by fatigue, too.

Depression

Depression is a very hard condition to understand. It's like a fog descends on you and affects your mood. You can’t seem to function like normal, everything seems impaired. Your mood may rise a little bit through, say, a positive thought, but then it feels like it sinks again, then it may rise too much and you become manic. Depression also comes with feelings of suicide, like you want to go and play with traffic, to what, snap you out of it? Clearly, there is a void between your expectations of existence and reality, which is likely causing the fog to descend, but they say depression is a complex condition, part congenital, hormones, and brain set-up. Apparently, a tDCS machine reduces suicidal thoughts by 75%. Depression feels like shame and humiliation. Like your low mood, your vulnerable low mood already will be criticised by someone else, shaming you, which causes anxiety, or is that just catastrophic thinking? Women are 5 times more likely to experience depression. There's no shame in experiencing depression.

Theoden from the Lord of the Rings trilogy by director Peter Jackson (from the novel by JRR Tolkien) always reminds me of what a depressed person may look like and how he may be feeling.