trigger warning

• my mental health conditions ⇢
  • general anxiety disorder, with history of panic attacks
    • dermatillomania
    • social anxiety
  • major depressive disorder
  • edit: diagnosed with cptsd in sep 2023
  • edit: diagnosed as autistic in oct 2024
• depression ⇢
  • my first depressive episode happened when i was thirteen and coincides with traumatic neglect i experienced
  • i've had two major bouts of depression in my life, both lasting over a year
  • i've been close to catatonic in depression
  • i have very little memory of my second bout of depression, which was over two years long - it feels like this time is just... lost
  • i fear losing memory/time again
  • i was unaware of how severe my depression was until years later when my wife told me about it
  • i do not experience an uptake of negative emotions during depression, instead, I experience a lack of all emotions and problems with dissociation and derealization
• anxiety ⇢
  • i have had anxiety since i was around six years old - this coincides with the start of childhood sexual abuse i experienced
  • my anxiety mainly centers around a few things: my health and safety, the health and safety of my wife, my mental health
  • during my first panic attack, i had my wife take me to the ER because i was convinced i was having a heart attack and dying
  • since my first panic attack, i have had physical and mental symptoms of anxiety every single day
• i have been in therapy since 2018 and believe that talk therapy has been extremely helpful to me - i also believe talk therapy was the catalyst for my first panic attack
• i never took medication for depression - i started an ssri after my first panic attack because my anxiety became unbearable
• i didn't consider that i had depression or anxiety until i was around twenty-five - i just thought i was a terrible person
• trauma ⇢
  • as mentioned above, i experienced some trauma in my childhood, mainly neglect and sexual abuse
  • i didn't acknowledge or start processing any trauma until i was twenty-six
  • my trauma has impacted my physical and mental health in a lot of ways and i'm still learning how to heal
  • edit: started emdr therapy summer of 2023 to work through trauma