I saw my GP yesterday morning, and was telling her about my recent severe social anxiety and paranoia and rawness.
We talked about medication. I used to take propranolol when I needed it, but had taken myself off it.
But right now I need it occasionally. So I am going to try taking it again. I took a low dose yesterday, and feel a whole lot better as a result.

My GP explained how it's good that I take it at the beginning of the agitation cycle, before things escalate.

She also explained how I would feel more sleepy after taking it, and that being in a state of constant anxious agitation is very tiring. [I do have a wonderful GP....]
So, I looked up Agitated Depression online. And I found out that

Quote:
an agitated depression, where depression exists alongside anxiety and occasional angry outbursts.
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/ate/depression/201831.html
and

Quote:
------------a state of clinical depression in which the person exhibits irritability and restlessness....
Agitation occurs in many severe depressive disorders, but in agitated depression it is particularly severe. There is no reason to suppose that agitated depression differs in other important respects from other depressive disorders.
Diagnostic Criteria for Agitated Depression

Major Depressive Episode
At least two of the following symptoms:
Motor agitation
Psychic agitation or intense inner tension
Racing or crowded thoughts
http://www.depression-guide.com/agitated-depression.htm

which so much described me it's amazing. Well, not great that I feel this way, but great that there's words for it and I'm not alone in suffering in this way.

I just now found this -

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Some unipolar depressed patients present with agitated depression, a very serious and fairly common clinical picture colloquially known as a "nervous breakdown." These patients are almost always melancholic. In addition to their anhedonia, insomnia, and loss of appetite, they show psychomotor activation in the form of pacing, rubbing their hands together, and/or a feeling that they are "jumping out of their skin."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/471885_4

Wow.
I feel "Why didn't they tell me this before?"
But maybe it's only just now becoming evident to my GP, maybe she knows me better now. Maybe... Whichsoever it is such a relief for me to have words for this distress that I've been suffering every day for the past 3 years, and intermittently before then, because everything was so blurred and mixed up.

I know that my agitation is also Complex PTSD related, but it's so much of a relief. I feel like I'm accepted, medically, at last. That I'm SEEN. And, that is so so important. To someone who just wasn't seen as a child or teenager. Or adult in my 20s. Now, in my late 30s I'm starting to exist in relationship to myself and others.
This is all quite powerful stuff. Deeply moving, in fact.

I just wanted to share my excitement at the discovery, at the naming of what I'm suffering. And to wonder if anyone else has similar symptoms...? I know my dad suffered similar [although he was undiagnosed and untreated] when he was the age I am now... But I don't know anyone else who has this kind of depression. It wasn't a comfortable thing to grow up around.
But I am growing in compassion now.

And, no, I'm not Bipolar, mine is the depression-only variety. [with PTSD and PD sprinklies. as it were]

I would like this to be read and acknowledged, because it's really important to me.