Thanks Lauren.
It's been going on in one form or another since my late teens. And I was anxious... from birth, basically. Before even. Maybe the length of time is an important factor, like you say. I hadn't thought of that.
And at uni a tutor said to me "everything seems like a real effort for you. *sigh*" Why the hell didn't they DO anything then? Did she not realise that's a huge red flag for depression, or at the very least, some long standing emotional struggle that needed help?
I don't know. I think part of the weirdness is that I was having difficulties LONG before I was diagnosed. I wasn't officially diagnosed until I was 35. I had been struggling since I was at least 17. [and had other stuff before then too, as I mentioned.] I had a major breakdown when I was 24, for which I never sought professional consultation or support.
I really do prefer to see myself as having suffered a series of breakdowns, with incomplete recovery between them, and which gradually became a chronic state in the run up preceding my getting the right kind of help, and which I'm continuing to work my way through to recovery.
And I think my split-ness is at least partly a result of my having to stuff down all my struggles and try and 'pretend' nothing was wrong for so many years, because I was terrified from things my father said to me as a child, and my frozen in childhood mind still believed could happen to me - being locked up, the key thrown away, and put in a strait jacket.
Does all that make sense?
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