**Tldr;** anxiety subtlety caused me to dissolve friendships and strive towards a dull, mundane predictable life because it was safe and controllable. This led to severe depression. This led to a breakdown. Relationship broke up, I quit work, had a break, started therapy – now working on acceptance. 

It's no exaggeration that my anxiety has influenced my life more than any other factor. I had it as a child, and I also developed a stutter at about age 14, with its potency correlating with my anxiety levels, e.g. the more anxious I am, the more I stutter. This anxiety/stuttering combo has been kicking my ass for the past 20-years. During this time I tried different anxiety medications, speech therapy (for the stutter), traditional therapy and all the usual self-help stuff.. hundreds of books, videos, meditation, mindfulness, nutrition, elimination diets, supplements, nootropics, sleep tests, blood tests etc…

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately, as this year it all came to a climax. Despite all my efforts I never got past it. My anxious tendencies caused me to lose ties with all my friends over the years, I never made the effort to keep these relationships going, and so they all fizzled out beyond repair. I stayed at the job that was sapping my soul because it was comfortable, better the devil you know right? And so, I achieved this mundane, predicable, dull, unstimulating lifestyle which is exactly what anxious me wanted, because it was safe and controllable.

This is when depression came along, and is it any wonder it did. This dull lifestyle combined with covid lockdown brought my depression to really bad levels. It’s also worth noting, one mentality I was trying to train for tackling my anxiety was “not caring about things so much”. You know with books like “How to not give a f\*ck” etc.. I was trying to build on this mindset prior to the depression. However, when the depression came along, I became incredibly nihilistic – indeed I didn’t care about anything, nothing mattered, nothing interested me and I just wanted to be done with life.

The beginning of this year I had a breakdown of sorts; I actually started a new job after a false lull of motivation. I’d get them every now and then, a little surge of belief that this time it’d be different, that my new morning routine was the answer, or how my mentality had finally shifted – but it hadn’t. I started the new job, and our old friend anxiety came back with a vengeance, combined with the depression that absolutely was still there. I became a stuttering, anxious mess that didn’t care about life anymore.

Once suicidal thoughts were becoming more prominent, I quit work without anything lined up and took some time off. Fortunately, I still had the self-awareness to recognise that this was heading into a point of no return. At this time my 8-year relationship also broke down. 2-3 years of being this shell of a human was too much for her, she’d seen numerous “false starts” where “this time it’s different”, she knew it would end up the same.

Ironically, the few months I took off from working, combined with traditional talking therapy were huge for me. If she had gave it one more chance, maybe it would have been different this time, maybe not… maybe her leaving was needed for true change.

Now I find myself here, and I’m trying to make sense of where it all went wrong. Anxiety is a horrible, evil curse. it has subtlety influenced my whole life. It has pushed me away from adventure, friendships and ambition. It turned me into this husk of a person. 

I think the positive from all this (if there is one), is that I kind of had to go through it all to gain this true understanding. Even if I was back in those situations with this foresight, I wouldn’t have been different as my brain chemistry would still be the same, regardless of what words you feed to it.

I wish I had traditional, talking therapy earlier – just talking out your mind to somebody made a massive difference to me, it’s helped me accept and understand it more. Maybe if I had that at an earlier age it would have compounded over the years. I’d certainly advise that to anybody struggling, there is no loss from trying it.

I always had a mentality of needing to “fix” this, there must be a “cure” – but that was the true downfall, this naïve pursuit of an impossibility. I believe the true way is acceptance, accepting that this is how you operate, and being kind, patient and loving to yourself regardless. Previously I’d be frustrated, impatient and angry with myself for this “flaw” I have. But if it was a physical impairment you wouldn’t act with such naivety, why then should it be different with a mental impairment? Although ironically, I find that acceptance simmers the anxiety, so in itself, it is a sort of combative against it. But you’ve got to be careful to not start thinking it’s fixed and going back to old ways.

I’ve recently gained a lot of interest in Stoicism, less so with a self-help type approach, but more of a framework of how to live and understand myself. I’m also trying to shift to a mentality of gaining experiences, as these are the things that will truly matter on your deathbed. Therapy, stoicism, self-kindness, acceptance and new experiences is my new recipe – I hope it brings more success than before.

Wow, this was a really long ramble. I’m not sure what I hoped to gain from this, it’s more for my own gain to be honest as I’m trying to understand, but maybe it’ll be useful for somebody too if you read this – thanks for coming!