For many clients, working out which came first, the anxiety or the depression, can see a bit like chicken and egg.
Are you depressed because anxiety rules your life and stops you doing the things you want to do? For example, one recent client I helped used to suffer very low moods in the summer while everyone went on holiday and she felt trapped at home, too worried about having a panic attack to venture too far.
Or is your anxiety part of your depression – a fear of the future, or feeling so bad or living with a sense of doom or lack of self worth. Many people with depression constantly worry and dwell about things in the past and things yet to happen.
But whether you have anxiety or depression (or both) – whatever label you or someone else has given it – the key question is always, how is this thing manifiesting itself now and how is it keeping itself going?