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Social Anxiety Or Depression?

You might be wondering whether you have social anxiety or depression.

I know I was. Well, to be honest, I actually didn’t know what was going on with me. All I knew was that I was feeling really awful.

I had low self esteem, was insecure and felt there was no solution to my situation. I felt I was doomed to a limited, unhappy life. This gave me a really heavy depressed feeling. Pitch black is the color that comes to mind when I think back of that gloomy time in my life.

Now back then I knew a little bit about depression because a friend of mine had it, but I had never heard of social anxiety disorder.

And since I was only feeling like this for a few weeks and thought it was part of life, I never had myself diagnosed for suffering from depression.

In this depressive period however, I felt the worst. And lucky for me, I accidentally found out about how the mind was responsible for how I felt.

And that by changing my mind about things, I could change how I was feeling. This gave me hope, and I managed to slowly but surely help myself get out of the situation I was in.

So in my case, the answer to the question “social anxiety or depression or both?” was probably “both”.
I was just feeling so depressed because I really did not see a way out of my misery and had no hope for the future. I even wished that I was already old, like a grandfather. Nice and safe I thought.

Now I have had an intense period of feeling depressed. But thankfully I never had to experience a real depression that lasts for months. Such a depression is for many people, maybe for you also, a result of having social anxiety.

In this article I will inform you about how social anxiety and depression are related and I give you the basic symptoms of depression. After that I’ll give you some basic advice on how to deal with depression.

Are You Suffering From Social Anxiety Or Depression?

Social anxiety and depression are related as depression is often a result of social anxiety. Roughly 1 in 6 people who have social anxiety disorder also develop depression.

To find out if you are suffering from social anxiety or depression or both, ask yourself some questions.

Do you avoid social interactions and parties because you are afraid of negative judgment and have a fear of becoming embarrassed?

Or do you avoid social interactions and parties because you simply don’t want to experience them as you don’t expect to get any enjoyment out of them anyway?

If you answered the first question with a “yes” you probably suffer from social anxiety. If you answered the second question with a “yes” you likely suffer from depression.

If you answered “yes” to both questions, you might have social anxiety and depression at the same time.

When I had social anxiety disorder I had no idea that what I was feeling every day was an actual disorder that could be treated.

I was afraid that I had to live with all these negative thoughts and emotions my whole life. This caused me to get very depressed when thinking of the future. I felt there was no hope for a better future, that things would probably get even worse, and that nobody could help me.

Luckily I found some amazing material that gave me hope for overcoming my social anxiety disorder. Because of this I never developed a full-blown depression. For you that might be different…

Check below if you suspect to suffer from depression by checking out the symptoms of it.

Symptoms Of Depression

Some of the most common symptoms of depression are:

  • Having a negative indifferent attitude. You have little or no enjoyment in things you previously found enjoyable. You don’t see the use of it, it’s meaningless to you
  • You withdraw from friends and family
  • You have debilitating thoughts of worthlessness, uselessness, hopelessness or inappropriate guilt
  • You have thoughts of self harm or even suicide
  • You feel sad or empty. Or both
  • You have significantly more/less appetite which results in weight gain/loss
  • You have difficulty concentrating and remembering things and you struggle to make decisions
  • You have very little energy
  • You have a very low level of motivation
  • You have trouble falling asleep and sleeping through the night and/or you have a lot of sleep during the daytime

If the above symptoms make you suspect that you suffer from a depression, I strongly suggest you contact your doctor or mental health care professional.

Improving Your Social Anxiety Or Depression Yourself

What you can do yourself for your social anxiety or depression (or both) is to follow all the advice on this website.

For your social anxiety go have a read here and look at the related pages (as well as advice on other pages) on the bottom of this page.

To alleviate your depression it is advisable to start exercising.

I know it’s probably not what you are looking forward to, and it’s probably difficult to motivate yourself, but it really helps.

Why?

Well, exercising burns up adrenaline and cortical, chemicals in your body that cause stress. Plus it also boosts your serotonin level, a chemical (endorphin) that is responsible for “good feelings”.

Aside from that you should stop having caffeine as this negatively influences depression.

Doing these two simple things will help you a lot if you suffer from social anxiety or depression. You will feel better in a short while and will be better able to deal with your negative feelings as they will be less intense due to improved chemical balance in your body.

Whether you have social anxiety or depression or both, make sure you take action to move forward. Especially when you have a depression, talk to someone about it, see a doctor.

Both social anxiety and depression are curable. You can feel confident in all social situations and be happy about socializing in general once you get over these mental disorders.

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