Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder (MADD)

It can be tough to deal with mixed anxiety depressive disorder (MADD) all at once. Above all, you’re dealing with sadness and worry at the same time. Therefore, not only do you have to manage the pain that these emotions cause, you also have to deal with the difficult situations that triggered these emotions to begin with.

Of course, it’s normal to feel sad or worried when facing tough times; these emotions are an inevitable part of life. Sometimes however, sadness and worry can take a toll on us. Altogether, these emotions can be intense, last longer than we’d expect, or creep up on us, without us really knowing why. Hence, if you feel like sadness and worry are impacting your well-being and ability to enjoy life, then this information on anxiety and depression might be helpful for you.

Basically, anxiety is intense fear or worry, while depression is a lasting period of low mood, low motivation, and low energy. Although anxiety and depression can occur on their own, many people experience both at the same time. After all, excessive worrying can make you feel flat and down, feeling depressed can make you more likely to worry, and both can be triggered by stressful situations.

“By being yourself you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before.” — Edwin Elliot

Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder Symptoms

Therefore, here are the signs and symptoms of MADD:

Physical Signs

Muscle aches and tension.
Nausea.
Feeling unusually tired.
Change in appetite.
Sweating more than normal.
Reduced interest in sex.
Lastly, unintentionally loosing or gaining weight.

Psychological Signs

Feeling persistently worried.
Feeling flat or hopeless.
Thinking negatively.
Feeling unmotivated.
Feeling irritable.
Having trouble concentrating.
Finally, being unable to enjoy the things you used to.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings

Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder Test

What is the Anxiety and Depression Test (K10)? 

At length, it’s a short test that asks 10 questions about how you’ve been feeling over the past 4 weeks.

Your result also:

tells you what your distress level means
recommends what you can do now
directs you to support and resources designed for you.

Hence, this test can’t diagnose mental health conditions. Only a mental health professional can do that. Therefore, the test aims to help you understand more about your mental health so you can get tailored support.

“Scarcity of self-value cannot be remedied by money, recognition, affection, attention, or influence.” — Gary Zukav

Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder Treatment

 Cognitive Strategies

People with anxiety and depression often have a negative thinking style. They accept they aren’t good enough and as though a catastrophe is just around the corner. When something bad happens, they blame themselves, and when something good happens they attribute this to someone else or dismiss it as luck. Therefore, they might fixate on signs that something bad is about to happen and ignore signs that indicate everything is okay.

Important to realize, cognitive strategies aim to help people identify and shift these unhelpful ways of thinking. At the same time, by learning to reframe the way they think about life, people can start to feel more hopeful, confident, and grounded.

At this point, people learn that they have some control over what happens to them. As with behavioural strategies, having these skills reduces relapse and recurrence of anxiety and depression.

 Behavioral Strategies

Consequently, a key feature of anxiety and depression is avoidance. Avoidance is when you miss out on fun or important experiences because of the unpleasant emotions these experiences trigger. Because avoidance deprives you of the chance to have fun, connect with other people, achieve things, and overcome your fears, it keeps anxiety and depression going. Behavioral strategies therefore target avoidance. For example:

Set goals for daily activity. Particularly, plan full days of useful activity by making a list of the activities you are going to engage in at different times during the day.

What activities do you enjoy? In any case, try to increase the amount of time you spend on these enjoyable activities.

What activities push you just a little bit outside of your comfort zone? In a word, see what happens if you try something new, that doesn’t feel too overwhelming.

Reward yourself for your efforts. Overall, ask others around you to encourage and praise you for each small step you take. Recovering from depression is a bit like learning to walk again after breaking your leg.

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” — Zig Ziglar

Conclusion

Moreover, depression and anxiety can be detrimental to your health when they occur independently. Therefore, the effects are even more when you have mixed depressive and anxiety disorder because now you have to deal with the feeling of intense sadness and worry at the same time. While it is manageable in its first stages, it could worsen if no recommended treatment is received.

As a result of impacting mental health, both impact a person’s well-being. This includes disrupting sleep, causing fatigue, and other physical symptoms like pain. People with anxiety and depression that is untreated often struggle with functioning in daily life.

Nonetheless, both depression and anxiety also impact a person’s mood and cause feelings of hopelessness and low self-esteem. They also commonly cause irritability and a lack of interest in activities that they enjoyed in the past.

Well, I am going to end for the night. Stay sane. Until next time…