Anxiety and depression are a notorious duo. Over 40 million Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder each year, and an estimated 60% of them also have symptoms of depression. (And vice versa.) When you experience two mental health concerns simultaneously, it’s called comorbidity. And it occurs more often than you may think.
Overcoming the comorbidity of depression and anxiety may seem impossible. However, both mental health issues are 100% treatable. You just have to find the right mental health provider to curate your ideal treatment program and guide you to recovery.
There is no single treatment that’s going to work the same for everyone. At BOLD Health, we take the time to understand you, your needs, and how the link between anxiety and depression affects you.
It’s important to understand that if you have depression and anxiety, you’re not alone. There are plenty of people who are in the same boat. To better understand the comorbidity of depression and anxiety, let’s look at the two mental health disorders.
Understanding Depression
If you struggle with depression, you likely experience negative feelings and emotions daily. These may include fear, worry, anxiety, sadness, suicidal thoughts, and hopelessness. When you have depression, your personal and professional relationships are often negatively impacted.
Some of the most common depression symptoms include the following:
- not finding joy in activities you typically enjoy
- feeling exhausted or drained of energy
- changes in sleep patterns
- feeling overwhelmingly sad nearly every day
- changes in appetite
- feelings of worthlessness or guilt
- recurring thoughts of death or suicide
- having a hard time making decisions or concentrating
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Understanding Anxiety
Anxiety comes in many forms, some more overwhelming than others. Many of the uncomfortable feelings you experience when you have anxiety mimic depression, so it can be tricky to understand if you suffer from both.
Common symptoms of anxiety include:
- difficulty concentrating
- fatigue
- sleep trouble
- irritability
- muscle soreness from tensing up
- shortness of breath
Here are some of the most common types of anxiety:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): When you have GAD, you tend to worry about nearly every aspect of your life, including your job, your relationships, your health, and the state of the world. Despite your efforts, you can’t control these thoughts, making focusing challenging affecting work, productivity, and relationships. You may also experience physical symptoms like stomach aches, headaches, and muscle tension.
- Social Anxiety Disorder: Social anxiety disorder resonates with social situations where others might judge you: public speaking, parties, dates, and eating in public. Mental symptoms of SAD include high levels of fear, dreading social events, humiliation, and embarrassment. Physical symptoms of social anxiety disorder include blushing, nausea, stuttering, and predisposed anxiety attacks.
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- Panic Disorder. Panic disorder revolves around your natural fight-or-flight response and is characterized by frequent, recurrent, and unexpected panic attacks. Often, they’re so bad they cause you to constantly worry about when the next one will occur. You may experience intense fear, increased heart rate, sweating, tingling and numbness, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, and feelings of unreality like you’re in a movie.
- Separation Anxiety Disorder: Your anxiety revolves around separation from a caretaker, spouse, loved ones, parent, and pet. You may fear being alone or think something awful will happen if you are alone. This form of anxiety is more common in children, but some adults experience it. Separation anxiety chips away at your self-esteem and sense of security and independence.
- Agoraphobia: When you have agoraphobia, you constantly anticipate disaster, keeping you on edge, worried, and fearful about leaving your home. You likely avoid leaving your house, riding public transportation, crowds, taking elevators, or even wide open or closed spaces. Many times, agoraphobia is accompanied by panic attacks.
- Specific Phobias. An irrational, intense fear of a particular situation or object. There is a phobia for everything. A few specific phobias include snakes, blood, clowns, and heights. Your phobia will cause you to avoid what you fear at all costs. Sometimes, even a depiction or mention of the thing that causes the anxiety can send you into panic mode.
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Once our team of clinicians understands your anxiety, they can tailor your treatment to your specific needs and curate the perfect form of anxiety treatment in San Diego for you.
The Link Between Anxiety and Depression
There is no single answer explaining the link between anxiety and depression. Their relationship is rather complicated. Thought patterns often perpetuate both, resulting in a vicious cycle of the two disorders.
If you have depression, it can trigger your anxiety. And if you have anxiety, it may trigger depression. Maybe you are anxious because you’ve felt depressed. Or perhaps you’re struggling with depression because your anxiety causes you to isolate from people and activities you once loved and enjoyed.
To complicate things further, even clinically recognized symptoms of an anxiety disorder can mimic signs and symptoms of depression. The overlap of symptoms could mean your anxiety and depression share a biological or chemical pathway in your brain.
Common overlapping symptoms include:
- fatigue
- difficulty concentrating
- indecisiveness
- agitation
- poor sleep patterns
Struggling with anxiety or depression separately is hard enough. If you’re dealing with the comorbidity of the two, it can make it even more challenging.
The good news is you can feel better. Whether you have depression, anxiety, or both, with the help of a mental health professional, managing depression and anxiety is possible.
Partner With BOLD Health for Anxiety and Depression Treatment in San Diego
At BOLD Health, we offer individualized, high-quality depression and anxiety treatment in San Diego tailored to your specific needs. Partnering with us will give you comprehensive, understanding, compassionate mental health treatment.
We’ll help you get to the root of your mental health concerns, guide you in successfully managing depression and anxiety, and help you better understand the link between anxiety and depression.
When choosing the proper anxiety and depression treatment in San Diego for yourself or a loved one, you want a team you can trust, lean on, and respect. Because our facility is physician-owned, we can provide care on several levels.
Our options for depression and anxiety treatment in San Diego include:
- group therapy
- individual therapy
- family therapy
- medication management
- ketamine treatment
- intensive outpatient program (IOP)
The situations and circumstances that brought you to BOLD Health are unique. We want to learn your story and provide you with the care you deserve. Contact us to learn how we can help you through our anxiety and depression treatment in San Diego.