I know a lot of you have dealt with depression and anxiety so maybe one of you can help me.
I've had pretty bad depression for a few years now. Not suicidal; more like just going through the motions. Luckily I'm very easily entertained - I can always find a game to play or show to watch and it makes me forget about my troubles pretty easily - so depression hasn't hit me as hard as it probably hits others. Anyway, in the past year, I've come SO close to getting out of it, largely thanks to the support of my Tagpro friends <3, but now I have this anxiety that has surfaced as sort of a counterpoint to the depression. Like any time there's something in my life that I feel positive about, or some goal that I start to focus on, I start to worry like CRAZY over it and find negative stuff to focus on. And it makes me feel even worse than I would if I didn't have anything positive or hopeful to think about.
I've always had social anxiety. Once I had a panic attack when my upstairs neighbors were having loud sex (which is kinda funny, I guess - even people talking about sex makes me super uncomfortable). And once I went to a bar with my friends to celebrate graduation, and we got to the door where they check ID's and I said something like "I'm sorry you guys, I can't do this" and they were just like "Oh... okay" and I just walked home and felt like the most pathetic person in the world. But this is like a whole different thing... Instead of being triggered by social stuff, it's triggered by... well, basically anything and everything. Like I've even stopped fucking reading (which is one of my favorite things to do) because the words keep setting me off on these horrible trains of thought. It's gotten bad enough now that I'm considering quitting Tagpro and Mumble. It sounds awful, but... that would at least send me back to a normal depressive state without the highs and lows. I wouldn't have anything left to be happy about but maybe it would lessen the anxiety? I don't know.
Has anyone else been through something like this? WAT DO? Is there any way I can avoid taking drugs? Do I just need to find the right activity that soothes my brain? Are there any tricks I can use to focus on the positive instead of the negative? I seem to not take setbacks well at all - how do I overcome that?