I've had both separately and at the same time. Anxiety causes me to have a panic attack, but its the depression that causes me to dwell and feel trapped by the anxiety. Otherwise with no depression I can easily shrug it off and continue as normal.
That's interesting. I have had panic attacks so severely that it is impossible to shake them off. My jitters and anxiety about further attacks can go on for hours or even days. I think I have a normal amount of depression ensuing from this, but not what I'd call clinical depression.
If I could put it into words, I'd say I felt more scared than depressed. "What if this is how my life will be from now on? I don't see how I could possibly cope. This must be what torture feels like."
(Fortunately the reality is that I managed to stabilise my anxiety using some of the methods I mentioned, to the point that I have few if any discernible symptoms for periods of months at a time.)
I've actually read papers by psychologists who seem genuinely unaware that quite severe anxiety disorder can present without any significant depression.
However, when I was a teenager I had a form of OCD that psychologists at the time considered to be a holy grail, essentially untreatable. I taught myself some mental tricks, which I later learned are standard fare for psychologists (CBT basically, although I'd never heard that term), and it went away after two years. I really and honestly thought full recovery wasn't possible at the time on the basis of what psychologists thought.
With anxiety, I choose not to own the condition. I don't feel attached to it in any way. I view it as definitely temporary, even if it does still flare up occasionally. And I believe that full recovery is realistic based on my past experience.
Of course I am just lucky that I don't have clinical depression to go with my anxiety. But I have friends who have fully recovered from that.
"I've actually read papers by psychologists who seem genuinely unaware that quite severe anxiety disorder can present without any significant depression."
That's incredible to me. Since this is mostly my condition.
