Anyone switching from anxiety to depression?

[Gattone]

After quitting tasks and pacing and stopping negative i got really depressed demotivated, feeling like an hole, feeling like also like my amigdala had quit, no survival instinct,no movements or emotions or desires,seems like amigdala stimulations kept me alive
i think i was depressed before. as i got cfs after a bad relatioship, but never like this
or maybe because of constant overstimulation my body got really too exausted...do you think there is something to do about emotions? anyone experienced something like this?

[Emergo]

Hi Gattone,

You might be right that the amygdala on high alert kept you going and that you now finally can feel the exhaustion. But although fatigue and depression go often hand in hand, they are not the same! If you really feel depressed (and they're not just short episodes); take them seriously. maybe talk to your GP.

I concluded that emotional issues are one of the root causes for my CFS and I am adressing them with EFT (a technique Ashok said he thought would not interfere with the ART on this very forum). Maybe another technique is the thing for you.

What is important - and maybe you should contact Ashok about this yourself - is that Ashok told me that it is important to separate the feeling/ anxiety and the underlying emotional issues. By this, I mean; STOP! the anxiety and address the emo issues in another therapeutic session, if necessary.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[damask-rose]

Yes, I had that thing of falling from anxiety into depression. But I did the STOP technique on it and visualised feeling happy and really engaged in life again - I had to do it a LOT. I found I also had to really search for reasons to live! After being ill and miserable for so long, it seemed I no longer had any confidence in life or in myself - if such a horrible thing as CFS could happen, then how could I trust life again? And I hadn't had a life, to speak of, for so long, that I'd forgotten how to do it! It took a lot of hard work to get myself motivated again and to believe in a life to look forward to. But it worked in the end. Honestly though, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do - I think it would have been easier just to stay ill, but I couldn't bear that anymore.

I'd love to know of other members' experiences in this area. So I don't feel I'm alone!

[Gattone]

exactly the same for me damask, even worse: when i decided to trust in life again i went out and ha d negative experiences , so the little trust i had fallen off again, i think this is the heart of the matter i think i forgot how living is like and how it may be plesant , i had serious emotional issues that hit on this matter also, my faith is really weak
i think we really need very positive experiences or go with someone who really enjoy life

[niaholt]

It is just too easy to falll into the depressed state with this illness and recently encouragement by Damask helped me not feel so alone when I fel tso depressed. After our talk I got the movie of the SECRET and it really got me going again.....either swim upstream against the tide or swim downstream....go with the flow. I have chosen the latter and am now doing much better...more concentration on meditation REALLY concentrating on my breathing because it lessens anxiety.

One good thing about the Buteyko program is you have to do 9 sets of exercises a day. In this way you have to sit with a stop watch to time the breathing techniques. It makes you disciplined and very soon you start to feel calmer. I am also trying a type of kinesology...BodyTalk system where they work on the brain system. Of course we all have travelled these kind of paths before so I went with only vague hope. The amazing thing I noticed in the following week was and increase in well being. Now I dont know if it was this as I was starting to improve anyway. It is a helpful adjunct and I feel more positvie about getting better. I dont think we have any alternative but to trust life. In all the 21 yrs of having this illness this is the first time I feel hopeful of us being cured.

[spring]

Yes I have fallen in the same big hole and just today have made an appointment with a counsellor.

While overjoyed at having a life again and having found a CURE(!) for CFS I have been battling depressive moods since I began the Amygdala retraining.

I have found this most disturbing because while being desperately frustrated, worried, bored, and lonely while having CFS I didn't very often feel depressed.

I have been feeling guilty that I am feeling like this now that I have many of the things that I bargained for while sick, [if I can just sit up/go to my kids soccer/see another view other than the one out my window I will be forever happy].

I have felt in a sort of shock, like I have just fallen out of some nightmare and I am shaking myself and thinking 'what now?'

I have always been a goal oriented person but now can't seem to develop any goals for my post CFS life.

I am wondering if I am experiencing a kind of traumatic stress response. I know that the symptoms listed here http://ptsd.about.com/od/symptomsanddia ... mptoms.htm fit me especially the Avoidance and
Hyperarousal Symptoms. Some of those symptoms are covered by Ashok but the feeling of disattachment and inability to concentrate aren't so much.

I decided to get some help because after a couple of months trying to deal with it myself I feel I am slipping deeper into a hole.

I guess after my first counselling session tomorrow I'll know more.

Thanks for raising this topic Gattone it is very timely for me.

[damask-rose]

It's so interesting that this is a common experience we're sharing. Before I started the GAR, I read a helpful document called Demystifying Depression: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/9/83936/58483

The writer explains that in depression, the brain is simply exhausted - he talks about levels of sertonin and the role that adrenaline and cortisol have to play. Basically he says that you have to 'go with the flow' for as long as it takes, and avoid excitement, and activities which involve concentration, organising, planning etc. as these are the things which deplete the brain - even television apparently, which explains why some of us have found television makes us feel tense. I had another look at the article after reading everyones' replies here, and I think it might be helpful for us all. It's a similar explanation to Ashok's but more geared towards depression. The only thing is this chap recommends anti-depressants, which I wouldn't want to try myself.

Seems it just takes a while for these things to sort themselves out, and giving it the time it takes is probably the best thing. Anyway- I'd like to know what y'all think!

[noeshe]

This is so good to read....I too was wondering why I am not as joyful as I thought I would be, once I could do more things. I guess that's why I'm taking things slow with the AR. Seems like I have to get used to being healthy (I'm not anywhere near 100%, but already much better than I was). Every step forward triggers it's own level of anxiety/depression I also found the symptoms of posttraumatic stress syndrom very similar to how I feel. I did have trauma in life though, and was quite spurprised that more people with CFS have the same thing.

The underlying believes-session was also very helpful for me.

[cagey]

I noticed an increase in fatigue after just a few sessions. For me, depression has always alternated with anxiety. With CFS or Fibro, I was able to distract myself a lot with figuring out how to heal and what to try. One thing I do know is that my mood changes come and go like weather, so I try to remember that they will change, and they always do. If I feel strong enough, I face the depression in a process called direct inquiry (good books on the topic are"The Truth Is" by Poonja and "The Diamond In Your Pocket" by Gangaji). The main point is depression, when examined, can be turned into compassion, most importantly COMPASSION FOR YOURSELF. It's another tool in the toolkit. Good luck and thanks to everyone for being here.

[Lynnezhu]

I think it is a question of identity. We have been so long preoccupied with illness and limitations that there is suddenly a space which is unfilled, and it takes a while to fill the space with what we really want to do or just relax into the space of awareness without content.

With meditation it takes a while to be able to relax into the spacious and openness and not fill it. But it would also take a while to fill it with good alternatives tasks and joys. So anxiety would be predicted with any huge shift, even a good one. My experience anyway. Anxiety a good sign of a big shift.

[Gattone]

What ashok thinks about it?

[Chronicfatiguetreatments]

i noticed that my brain fog gets in the way of me being depressed about having cfs. I feel so spaced out that i cant even really think about it.
But, ive had periods where ive felt alot better and my brain fog clears and then it hits me all at once. Is that what you are talking about or is it different?
I emailed ashok to see if he could chime in on this.

[Gattone]

like this or even more
seems like if i relax i fall into pieces
i found an explanation in energy medicine by donna eden, she says often in cfs there is a broken basic grid
but i think it's a negative thought
here is the explanation
http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:eb ... clnk&gl=it
9) The Basic Grid: The basic grid is your body’s foundational energy. Like the chassis of a car, all the other energy systems ride on the energy of the basic grid. For instance, when you are lying down, it would appear to a person who sees subtle energies that each of your chakras sits upon this foundational energy. Grid energy is sturdy and fundamental. But severe trauma can damage your foundation, and when this occurs, it does not usually repair itself spontaneously. Rather, the other energy systems adjust themselves to the damaged grid, much as a personality may be formed around early traumatic experiences. Repairing a person’s basic grid is one of the most advanced and intense forms of energy medicine. If a grid’s structure or a car’s chassis is sound, you never notice it is there; if it is damaged, nothing else is quite right.

[Gattone]

Maybe this aspect is covered in guptaprogramme by recalling a good functioning structure(step 6) but if someone is severe and long term ill doesn't even remember on somatic level which is a good structure

on a conceptual level i would ask if it's good to recall a structure from the past which anyway has collapsed so maybe it wasn't so good...
I talked about this because i went to an energetic operator and tell me that my sistems were a total mess... i experienced also repentine changes in somatic structure like if my brain can't judge wich is the "good" or functional structure
I think that step 6 in the programme is very important and deserves a deeper attention

[efly]

I think as we start to get better..there is a lot of IDENTIFICATION with the feeling of ''NORMAL''.excitment into what life will be...great expectations.......healthy people dont do this...they accept the feeling..in a calm way.and just get on with life....distract, We are soooooo not use to feeling GOOD when we do there is a huge investment in this state...then we usually go down....keep all states the same .....not easy to do. It takes time for the body to be normal again..It Has to ''remember normal'' ..we have been so bad for so long our body only knows this way...
Stop all identification with body states ! seperate from these emotions.
i think this is what lynnezhu is getting at ?
efly