I have come up with the solution that would completely bring back my ability to experience pleasure again. When I had these panic attacks in the very beginning, even though I did become depressed, this depression was simply a response at the time and was not a defense mechanism that shut down the fear and my ability to experience pleasure as a result in order to prevent the panic from happening. At the time, I thought to myself that maybe in 1 month this would all get better and that maybe I won't have panic all throughout the day each day. However, the moment that I began to have an extreme fear in which I experienced as many as 3 panic attacks in 1 minute and the panic didn't seem to stop, I made the realization that this is likely that this is something that is not going to stop and would almost continue all day everyday. That is when this depression became the defense mechanism and shut down the fear and shut down my ability to experience pleasure in order to not take that great risk. There is also another realization that I made that is also contributing to this depression in taking on the form of this defense mechanism which is that there are people who are treatment resistant in terms of panic disorder and hardly or do not get better despite medication, CBT, meditation, exposure therapy, and everything else. Therefore, this is also something that poses yet another great risk which is that my panic could continue and hardly or never get better and that I will live an entire life of panic or at least many years of panic. Since my mind is also not willing to take that great risk as well, this is also another reason why this depression remains there holding off my fear and pleasure all the time as a defense mechanism.

In CBT, this is something that addresses something known as 'cognitive distortions.' I already realize that me thinking that there is the possibility that I will have many or even almost constant panic all day everyday and also that it might hardly or never get better would be me catastrophizing which would mean that my thinking here is not true because we don't even know if this is a possibility or not. However, there is something that is true which I feel therapy and such cannot address which is that there is the risk of that happening if my depression were to somehow go away right now or ease up which would no longer hold off the fear. Again, I know from personal experience that when there were moments in which this depression went down a bit, that did cause the panic to return. But now there are never such moments and the depression remains there all the time 24/7 holding off my fear and pleasure.

Let's pretend right now that I would be completely comfortable with this risk stated above, that would cause my depression to go away completely right now. However, this is completely impossible for me to feel comfortable at all with this risk and I do not think it would be possible for any human being to feel comfortable with such a risk either. This is why my depression remains there and is not getting better in order to avoid this risk.

This is why I ask if there is any possible way for anyone here to address this issue and if there is any way possible to help me think differently in such a way that would be likely for me to recover from this depression or if there is any therapy and such whatsoever that would address this issue.