Quick Theory: Depression vs Anxiety

I think a lot about stress, and how it affects us. We sometimes have so much to do, and so little time, that we do not know how to do all of it. Our mind, then, has multiple methods to take them all into account.

It can pay attention to things.

It can also block things out.

But how does our mind’s response affect our state of being?

Here’s my hypothesis:

Depression and Anxiety are opposite states of mind.

But people with mental problems sometimes say that they suffer from “high levels of depression and anxiety”. Well, hear me out:

Depression and Anxiety originate from the same source. It’s our response that gets us into one or the other.

But what is the source, and what is the response?

The source of depression/anxiety is a significant amount of tasks, or things to do, or things to think about.

In other words, whatever takes over your head space and life. And:

The response of a person to the source is one’s focus apparatus.

As in, your ability to think about the tasks that you have to do. You may now think my theory has no footing, but bear with me.

My theory is that people have a limited ability to multi-task, but they also need something to do: they can’t do nothing. One could say that, when you multi-task too many things, you are stressed, but when you do nothing, you are relaxed. And that is true, if we think short-term (a few minutes to an hour of your time).

I’m not denying anyone’s ability to multi-task for a short period of time, and I’m not forcing anyone to never “chill”. But please think with me on a longer scale. An entire day, a week, a month, for some years of the following:

You have to do an overwhelming amount of tasks and you’re thinking about many things: job (maybe multiple), mortgage, debts, kids, school, life in general, politics that will affect you, wars over the borders, maybe arguments with your spouse. One day, it’s too much, and you don’t do any of it. Now, it’s your mind’s job whether to focus on all, one or none:

• If you focus on one aspect, you are concentrated on it. You can do it, then move onto the next. This is what you have been doing all along, most likely, but things accumulated and you got overwhelmed.
• If you zoom out the lens, and focus, at the same time, on all the things that you have to do, but you don’t do it, you get anxious about all of them, and how they are affecting or will be affecting you.
• If you close your lens completely, you don’t focus on anything. A part of you knows there’s all the things that you have to do, but you just have nothing in your mind. You are forced into a state of deep relaxation, you likely are on some substance that is helping you. But it is not energizing. You are not happy. When you have nothing to focus on, you are depressed, because you feel like you have no purpose. You are in a continuous state of “fuck it”.

But you can see how you can fluctuate from one state or the other. Hell, you likely have been in all these states yesterday. But as long as it does not go on for long, you’re fine. But you likely want to balance your own ability and power, be mindful of your limitation of being able to focus on a single thing at a time, and plan things ahead, to avoid the overwhelming feeling that can direct you towards one state or the other.

Quick final note

In summary, depression and anxiety are completely opposite responses to multiple sources of stress. If you take it all in at once, you get anxious about all of them. If you ignore them all at once, you risk falling into a depression. The way to avoid either is to use your limited amount of focus to think about and do one thing at a time.

I hope you liked this format. Sometimes, I have something short and sweet to note down about life in general, but not so short that it fits into a tweet, so I think I’ll put them here from now on, and separate the blog tabs when I feel in the mood for design.

Either way, this is a theory based on observation of my own self, as well as my general understanding of what people refer to when they are in either state. If you disagree (or agree even, but have more to say), let’s think together down below.