Anxiety and Depression: Is there Relief?
I was told once that my depression was a choice. That I could simply choose to wake up happy with my life and motivated to do the simple things. Imagine sunshine and rainbows and then I would be okay. I was told my depression was because I was choosing to focus on everything wrong and choosing to wake up feeling like the world was crashing around me. It was the same with my anxiety. I was choosing to worry. I was choosing to lose the ability to breathe in the middle of a grocery store. I was actively choosing mental illness.
Anyone else??
Well, I’m here to tell you that was a lie.
I did not choose to suffer from depression or anxiety. However, my body was talking to me and telling me that something was off within my system. Something wasn’t working right. My progesterone was very, very low the 2 weeks prior to my period which would spike my anxiety, my chronic stress had knocked my vagus nerve offline and as a result I also had belly issues(which led to brain fog) and paradoxically my stress hormones would spike. My blood sugar was a mess and so I couldn’t make neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine properly which led to depression and low motivation. AAAGH! I didn’t start healing until I started my functional medicine journey with Dr. Starling and I am here to tell you that you too can heal.
My mental health wasn’t a choice, but the way I chose to manage it and pay attention to it was. Ignoring mental illness doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse. Fortunately, we are living in a world that doesn’t turn a blind eye to mental illness. Any sort of mental illness can be managed and if managed successfully, it can be altered. It has to be addressed at the roots of the dysfunction…not with denial and positive thinking.
Functional medicine believes at looking at the root cause of your symptoms. Many studies conducted have found that there is a correlation between low serotonin levels and depression as well as low progesterone & GABA being related to anxiety.
Moral of the story: your symptoms can uncover so much more that your body is trying to say. Listen.
What Can You Do Next?
Finding out the root cause is the most important.
We are going to look at your entire body, because it’s all connected! We don’t guess, we test, using the most comprehensive testing to make sure we get accurate answers and results.
- Your Microbiome~Look at your gut!
- Hormones~Our hormones are more important than you think!
- Food Allergies~It’s not so important to cut out the foods that are triggering our symptoms.
- Emotional Triggers~Is there a triggers
- Genetics-Some mental health patterns can be attributed to your genetics. Having this information is helpful to know so that you can manage your mental health the most informed way.
Having suffered from anxiety and depression for 20 plus years and went through the therapy sessions, all the self-help books I could find, and many conversations with my family around my mental state, I was relieved when I learned that my progesterone was way below the normal numbers for a 32 year old. I was relieved to learn that my gut was leaky and needed additional support. I was relieved when I discovered that because my gut was off, my neurotransmitters were imbalanced. I was relieved.
Relieved that I wasn’t crazy. Relieved that it wasn’t all in my head or that regardless of how many times I chose to be happy, I ended up stuck in my bed for days. I was relieved that they were wrong. Because the mental is attached to the physical. You need your physical, emotional, and spiritual body balanced to heal. And that’s what I got to do.
So, if you are reading this and you are suffering from depression or anxiety, or like me, you are suffering from both, know that there is hope. There is a root cause to mental illness. And I know, a good portion of my mental illness did need emotional healing, but the relief that there was a physical component—and that I found relief from my daily suffering with the help of a Functional Medicine Doctor in Denver—was incredible.
Dr. Starling is dedicated to healing the whole body. Not just the physical, not just the emotional, not just the spiritual, the whole body. If you are struggling and you need relief, reach out to our office today and discover what underlining issues are fueling your mental health symptoms.
By: Hannah Burn