Bark, yes that is very much what I'm talking about.

It sounds to me like you may be a person who believes in taking responsibility readily, and you might actually go overboard in that direction. I've read that that is a tendency that many depressed people have. Maybe somewhere, early in life, we were given a lot of responsibility - or - just felt it was on us to fix more than we could have, or should have.

Once I went to a psychiatrist (a long time ago) who kept saying to me, "What's the big problem?" Then he would respond to anything I cited by saying he didn't see it as all that big of a problem. Later I thought to myself, "Well isn't that what anxiety and depression are all about?" I mean, if fear and sadness were proportionate to the real threats and losses in our lives, then they would be just that - fear and sadness. By definition, anxiety and depression are excessive dysfunctional reactions. They occur when we are stressed beyond our coping ability. At least, that's my understanding. It's very tough to go around in life in that state.

But we didn't choose to have these responses. At some level, we do feel, as Rohag says, "that something somehow is threatening our existance." If that doesn't seem logical, well . . . the human mind is certainly not all about logic.

I think we feel as we do not because we are persuaded by the logic of our response. Something else is at work. Sorry, I don't know what that is . . . but it is potent.

As far as people seeing us for what we are . . . I think they pretty much do (given enough time.)

I believe your distress is real. I don't believe you are claiming distress, as a means to get sympathy. I think you would much rather not feel so distressed. Here at PC, you have company in that boat.