I almost never see any posts on Reddit or on the Internet at all about what recovery exactly looks like. Also, I should note that this is about recovery from **chronic** anxiety/depresh/panic. I am not talking about situational anxiety/depresh/panics that may even clear up by themselves, without you making any changes to any part of your life. 

Now if you're a chronic sufferer, you know, it doesn't clear up by itself, it gets worse. You need to make changes and you probably need help finding out what to change. You need a **treatment plan**. You either go to your doctor, therapist, or a psychiatrist or you come up with a treatment plan yourself. 

Here are some things about recovery I think the Internet is not talking about:

1. So, the recovery from chronic anxiety/depresh/panic, is **SLOW**. Very SLOW. I've heard that as a rule of thumb you need half the time you have had chronic anxiety/depresh/panic, to recover. 
2. You, yourself, will not notice progress unless you are very very self-aware and/or keep a journal. Other people around you will usually notice your progress before you do. This is good news. If you think nothing has worked on you, give it time. **CONSISTENCY is key**. Small changes sustained over a long period of time, is the name of the game.
3. If you are a chronic sufferer, you know that if one day you wake up and your anxiety or depresh is gone, you get anxious over the very fact that you have no anxiety lol Think of them as habits. You have been in a **habit of being anxious**. now one day you wake up and you're not anxious. But because it's your habit to be anxious, you get anxious because anxiety is not there lol So, you see, you need time to recover. You can't expect that one day you wake up and you have 0 anxiety/depresh/panic. Your body and mind need time to adjust. Give them the time they need.
4. Recovery is **not a straight line**. you will go up and down and up and down. But over time, over a long period of time, you will see your downtime gets smaller and smaller. So don't let the down times discourage you from sticking to your treatment. commit to a treatment plan, and DO NOT LET GO. Of course, if your treatment plan includes medications, you need to be aware of their side effects. If you experience side effects you have to discuss those with your doctor. do not waste time. pick up the phone and call your doctor if you're experiencing side effects.
5. Keep track of your mood, 3 times a day. Mornings, mid-day and night. record them. Every few weeks look at your progress. force yourself to see the progress. I myself didn't want to believe that I'm making progress, but our brains like evidence. So if you give your brain what it wants, eventually it has to admit that yes there is progress. And this is how **hope** is created (ie. through learning) :)
6. Do not think even for one second, that recovery is like seeing progress every day and feeling better and better every day. If you think like this, you will get disappointed when you don't see that kind of progress. 
7. I have spent literally days on the internet and Dr. Google to find out if even recovery is possible. Days in and days out I've searched. I was skeptical because I would read about all these people on the Internet who say nothing works on them and they have been this way or that way forever... and guess what, I never got better in the past few years, so maybe it is a forever thing. One more thing that threw me off was that also they say anxiety/depresh has no cure but they have treatments. Like what do they mean? I will never get better? I will always have to deep breath when I'm walking out the house?! Then I realized something: that recovery takes a long time and we as anxiety/depresh sufferers are not really known for our **patience**. If we were patient, the chances are we would not be chronically anxious/depressed/panicked. We want relief and we want it instantly. So, when we don't see progress or relief after even a few months, we let go and mark that treatment plan as not-working-for-us. 

Moral of the story:

You need a treatment plan tailored to your needs. You need to be patient, very very patient. Recovery takes time and it will not be a straight line. There will be ups and downs. Do not be eternally looking for instant reliefs. Be consistent. Your body will heal when it is ready.