Panic Attacks Complicate Efforts to Get Rid of Depression
Many people find that when they finally admit they are having panic attacks, they are surprised to find just how many people they know have also had them. Panic attacks make you feel crazy and yet they can leave as fast as they come. Many people have one or two panic attacks during a time of stress and then don’t have them again for a long time.
On the other hand, there are many people who struggle with them frequently. One of the problems in coping with them is the way that depression supplies fuel for them. Panic thrives on the feeling of being off balance and depression does a real fine job of making people feel off balance.
One of the problems in overcoming depression in our lives is that it is aided and abetted by anxiety. Depression depletes our energy, robs us of the enjoyment of simple pleasures (and big ones), and often makes it difficult for people to stay asleep past 3 or 4 am. Anxiety ramps us up with an adrenaline rush or it gives fake energy caused by low-grade stress response that doesn’t seem to have an off switch. Furthermore, anxiety often makes it difficult to fall asleep. Anxiety cuts our sleep short at the beginning of the night and depression cuts it off at the end of the night. Finally, when we are attacking anxiety and depression, we find that we are handicapped by these effects precisely at the moment when we need everything going for us.
One of the reasons that anxiety and depression make such a good team is that anxiety thrives on our sense of being unsafe, weak, and vulnerable to danger. The danger can be real or imagined. It can be tangible or intangible. Now here is the kicker: depression depletes us, makes us feel weak, unsafe, and vulnerable. In other words, depression creates the precise environment in our emotional landscape that makes anxiety grow like a weed.
